But Bethany’s mournful expression tells her soon enough that this is not over. They hold hands through the bars, and sink to sit: Cordelia on filthy straw, Bethany on cold stone flags. The goodwife watches for a few long moments, then shuffles away. From her beaded velvet purse, Bethany pulls a wrapped napkin and passes it over. Knowing that the children are in no danger makes Cordelia ravenous, and she wolfs the smuggled pastries so quickly that she feels sick.
“Have you seen Edvard?” she asks, watching greedily as Bethany hands her another napkin, more pastries. “Has he spoken to the lawyers? To Mr Farringdale? How much longer will this misunderstanding go on? I simply don’t understand, Bethany, how it happened, why Bella would say such a thing.”
“Dellie, you must prepare yourself. Life is going to be very different.”
“It will take a long time for us to live down the humiliation, certainly. But once we’re released, once people realise this has all been a terrible mistake . . . ” she takes a sharp breath. “A trial . . . ”
“There will be no trial, Cordelia,” Bethany says. “There will be no public shaming—or at least nothing worse than there has already been.”
“We may be grateful for that small mercy then.”
“But they say there must be seen to be a reckoning.”
“But we are innocent! Bethany, you know we are!”
“Yes, sister, I know you are. But . . . ”
“What of Edvard and Mr Farringdale? Are they not mounting a defence? Edvard was with me on the night the Agnews were killed.”
“Ah, but you would say that, wouldn’t you?” Bethany’s eyes are weirdly bright, then she looks away. “Or that is what they will say—and the newsmen have already judged you—what dutiful wife wouldn’t lie for her husband? And they consider you a dutiful wife, Cordelia, if a stupid one. They think you merely obeyed your master’s wishes.”
“But what about Edvard? What has he told them?”
Bethany pauses, as if choosing her words carefully to spare feelings, then realises that there is no gentle way forward. “Dellie, my dear, your Edvard is dead.”
Seeing incomprehension, she goes on, kindly, “He took his own life, hung himself.” She points to the wall behind Cordelia where there are metal shackles set high, but not so high that a man of Edvard’s height couldn’t reach to loop his own belt, then wrap it around his neck and lean forward slowly, oh so slowly, until all his breath was gone in a terrible, slow asphyxiation. “It’s as good a confession as anything, Cordelia. He gave up his right to defend himself—and you.”
Edvard is gone. He’s left her alone, alone in this hole, in this morass. Her husband, her protector, the man who could not bear to allow her a speck of independence, is no longer here—by his own choice.
“He was weak, sister, like they all are: with fortune frittered away, he was a failure as businessman, husband, and father.” There is a flash of contempt, quickly covered, as if she realises now is not the time. “And all the humiliation of the past days, having everyone who counts think he’s a thief and a murderer . . . ”
“But you do not, do you?” asks Cordelia quietly.
“Of course not. But with his money gone through bad investment, wasted on foolish ventures it certainly makes him look guilty. For God’s sake, Dellie, he was the only man not to make a profit from the Antiphon venture!” Bethany says in disgust and the comment hooks into Cordelia’s memory; she begins to think, trying to swim through the numbness. She is not really listening.
“I have some money put aside, I can take care of the children. Henry can still go to university. I will teach Victoria to be self-sufficient. And Torben will learn to grow up soon enough.”
“How did you know about Antiphon?” asks Cordelia.
Bethany pauses, thinks, answers, “Edvard told me.”
“No, he didn’t,” Cordelia says. “He didn’t. He didn’t tell me, he certainly wouldn’t have told you. I heard them talking at the Ball: everyone else made money, but he seemed to think we had not.”
Bethany remains silent.
“The woman here tells me we’d been having financial problems, problems Edvard never mentioned.”
Her sister’s face freezes, as if she’s deciding what to do, then she finally smiles: the deception is no longer worth her effort. The mask peels away, leaving the true Bethany utterly unveiled before her, the Bethany Cordelia has only glimpsed as if in a bad dream.
“Oh, sister,” she pleads, “what have you done?”
“What I wanted to.”
“Why, Bethany? We never refused you anything!”
“I lived as a beggar in your house! Everything I had I had to ask for—you gave me nothing of my own! Always let me live on your charity.”
Cordelia’s mouth moves, but no sound comes.
“So I started taking what I needed at first, then what I wanted. Others have been willing to help . . . and those who were not were easily enough disposed of.”
“That boy . . . ”
“A pretty distraction, useful until he got squeamish, until your Merry maid gave him a conscience. He didn’t want to . . . ” says Bethany, almost reluctantly. She looks at Cordelia, shakes her head, and repeats, “He didn’t want to hurt them. Wasn’t averse to stealing, but he lacked the backbone to kill, even though leaving them alive would mean our discovery. Men are weak like that.”
“You gave Edvard the necklace. You stole it from the Agnews, murdered them . . . ”
“He told me to find something special for you. Fool. Didn’t ask where I’d found it, didn’t question the amount I demanded.”
“He set aside his pride, asked for your aid. He opened his home to you and you . . . ” Cordelia seems to feel the sticky warmth of Odela Agnew’s blood on her neck where her jewellery had once sat. “How did you . . . how did you take our money? He’d not have asked your advice about investments . . . ”
“Mr Farringdale can be most accommodating when given the right incentive.”
“Mr Farringdale . . . ”
“I have found, sister, that once you discover someone’s secrets you hold their heart in your hand.”
Cordelia thinks of Mr Farringdale and his spurned suit, his hopes and heartache; how long has Bethany strung him along? What promises has she made that he would betray his employer? “My children—”
“—will be safe so long as you are compliant. I have enough money to save the house, indeed, to buy up all those buildings Edvard owned and rented out to butchers and bakers and candlestick makers!—they will be sold cheaply to get rid of them, to wipe out the shame. Mr Farringdale will kindly see to that.”
“Why would he—”
“Have you ever been to an orphanage? Have you visited the one in this fair city?” Bethany rocks back a little as if easing the stiffness of sitting on the floor. “Oh, I know Edvard gives—gave—regular donations, but I don’t think either of you ever actually went to see the conditions. Of course, it is considerably better than the place you left me for over a year.”
“We came and got you! As soon as we knew what had happened we came! As soon as we could.”
“But you didn’t, did you? You didn’t come. You sent Mr Farringdale, didn’t you? Thin, yearning Mr Farringdale, with his darkest of desires, desires that could only be sated on a child . . . but you sent him.” She gives a bitter laugh. “Oh sweet sister, how innocent you are. Now consider Victoria: she’s older than I was when he came for me . . . perhaps she’ll be safer.” There is a moment when every particle of Bethany’s hurt, her agony, shows in her eyes, and Cordelia thinks the girl might cry; she reaches a hand to her sister, all scratches and grimy nails. Bethany pulls away, straightens.
“Bethany, I’m so—”
“Don’t say you’re sorry, sister, it’s far too little, too late,” she quietly says, then hisses, “Bad enough you left me with Mother in the first place! Bad enough you took Mrs Bell with you when you left, took away the only person who might have protected me!”
“And when—oh when, sister!—I at last arrived here what did I find but that you’d all but adopted Mrs Bell’s bastard daughter! Don’t look like that, Dellie. What an idiot you are: can you not see it in their faces? Their eyes? That little nose with its tilt? Oh, you’re so blind you deserve everything that happens to you!” Bethany sits back from the bars, shaking, and Cordelia isn’t certain whether it is from laughter, sadness or hatred, or perhaps some strange mix of all three. “You’d taken in that little accident, that stray, that base-born by-blow, and left me to the tender mercies of Mother, then Mr Farringdale!”
“Oh, Bethany, I’ll tell. I’m going to tell.” But Cordelia is trembling, rocked by her sister’s revelations and betrayal, by her own crushing guilt.
Bethany shakes her head a little sadly. “No, you won’t, Cordelia. You really won’t.”
“I will shout until someone listens. Edvard still has friends, influential friends—”
“Edvard is dead, sister. He is a disgrace; all those friends have distanced themselves from you both.” She smiles, as if reasonable.
“Mrs Bell—”
“Is gone, sister, as is Merry. Clever tarts, scarpering like that.” She laughs, mirthless.
“The brooch . . . ” says Cordelia, wishing she could apologise to Merry for every ill thought she’d ever had about her. Feeling the loss of her and Mrs B almost as keenly as that of her children.
Bethany’s eyes are lit with malevolence as she answers obliquely, “Little sweet thing with her principles. The moment Japheth set eyes on her, spoke with her, he turned soft. He was as bad as you, setting me aside for Merry.”
“It wasn’t enough to take him from her?”
“It’s never enough, sister!” shouts Bethany, spittle shooting from between her lips to splash hot on Cordelia’s hand. Then she calms down, takes a deep breath. “You are utterly without allies. Everything you once had is mine. Now, think on this: what will you do to keep your children from harm?”
Cordelia says nothing, feels ice forming in her throat.
“Your husband took the easy way out. Perhaps you might do the same? A strip from the hem of your gown would be a tidy noose. No? Then as I said, there must be a public shaming, justice must be seen to be done. If you confess to being Edvard’s accomplice, I will take care of your children. Keep your mouth shut, sister, and your babies will be safe.”
Cordelia stares at Bethany, trying in vain to see the little girl who’d come to live with her so long ago. She thinks of Merry rubbing salt into the doorstep to keep wickedness at bay, all for naught when they didn’t know the wickedness was already inside the house.
Bethany leans forward again, her voice soft. “One word out of place and I will drown the little darlings, I promise you. It won’t matter if anyone believes you because by then your darlings will be dead, I swear.” She fixes Cordelia with a hateful glare and speaks in a clipped fashion. “The prince has agreed: one year in the Rosebery hulks if you confess. Not such a long time. One year and your sweetings returned to you. What do you think, Cordelia? Willing to risk it?”
Before dawn, Cordelia is woken and her dress, now a ruined purple rag, is taken and in its place she is given a bleached calico shift, rough and itchy, and a coarse woollen cape too short to offer any real warmth. Other women are led up from the depths beneath Cordelia’s cell, and she is chained to them. Their ankles are fitted with shackles already speckled with rust and dried blood, which immediately bite into tender flesh, drawing new vital fluid to add to the old. Cordelia, eyes grainy with an excess of tears and a lack of sleep, not to mention the dust that rises constantly from the flaking stone walls and the straw on the floor of her cell, can feel only the sting of the rose tattoo they applied to her shoulder as soon as she gave her confession. Though the process took barely five minutes, the scarring burns constantly, as if the acid is daubed over and over.
The women, all twelve, are hustled out through the cobbled courtyard. As they wait to be loaded into an enclosed dray, Cordelia looks around, sees the portcullis, and in the voids between the metal latticework finds two faces, familiar and drawn: Mrs B and Merry. She’d know them anywhere though they’ve covered their bright hair with scarves and have thick travelling cloaks drawn around them. Both reach a hand through the bars as if to touch her, as if to throw something to her. Cordelia clasps her own hands and presses them to her heart; fights the urge to run to them, screaming questions, begging. Instead she nods, then the gaoler prods her in the back hard enough to leave a bruise, and she mounts the rickety stairs up into the body of the dray with thin wooden benches on either side, and only one window, set in the door, too high for any of the seated passengers to see much but the blue of the sky. Six a side, those at the farthest end must stretch their legs to accommodate the short reach of the shackles. Cordelia, at the end of the human chain and nearest the door, is spared that at least. The woman beside her has no front teeth and her breathing is harsh, the exhalations rotten. Two inmates across from her begin to talk, low voices, low words. They gossip because it makes them feel better, to know someone is worse off than they are.
“The rich ones got no guts, not strong enough to live through loss,” one says, and laughs to show she too has no front teeth.
“Position’s all they care about. When they lose their place on the ladder . . . ” the other shrugs, looks at Cordelia as if she knows who she is, leans in to speak directly to her. “Well, they’re brave enough to do their terrible deeds, but too weak to take responsibility for ’em.”
Cordelia merely stares. She stares so long that they become uncomfortable, they shift and shuffle, avoid her gaze, stop talking.
And though she wants to, she still does not fight. She does not scream or shout or leap to her feet. She feels instead a stiffening in her back, realises it’s the spine Bethany always said she’d lost. She knows pleas will fall on deaf ears, that no one will believe the tale she might tell. She does not fight because of her children, because in her silence lies their salvation.
So she says nothing, ignores the gibes and the acid-burn of the tattoo. She sways with the motion of the carriage, all the rattling, rolling, clattering way to Rosebery Bay. Three days with the other women and the smell they make, not allowed out for piss breaks except in the morning and the evening, fermenting in the back, the rank stench of body odour and shit and vomit.
All on the road to Rosebery Bay.
Cordelia dreams of the fire, of the warmth and the heat, of the sound of the logs as they crackle and burn and weaken, shifting as they become less solid. She dreams of the time that Henry once tucked chestnuts in the coals. In reality, they popped and exploded, giving all and sundry a fright. In her fancies one flies from the hearth, is propelled towards her skirt. The fine lace, highly flammable, takes the spark like a lover and the trail of flame speeds up her dress, up the bodice, then up the left sleeve. She uses her right hand to try to pat out the flickering red-gold, and succeeds only in burning her fingers. The dream-flames bite into her upper arm, her shoulder.
She does not like this fantasy—it is not the refuge she has come to expect, to desire, to need. She shakes herself awake and finds, much to her distress, that the flames have jumped the slender gap between sleeping and waking; she can see them through the barred window, an orange glow brightens her tiny cell despite the white-grey billowing in the passageway, trickling under her door. She has woken to
shouts and cries and screams and coughs, but no sound of the turnkeys coming to release any of the women on this ship.
Cordelia curses, despairs that the smoke did not take her as soon as it could, that it did not kill her while nestled in the memories where she wished to lie. She backs into a corner, and the space she has just vacated is gradually filled again: at first there is ash, then cinders, then embers, and finally blackened and half-eaten planks as the ceiling caves in. She stares through the dust that shifts on the breeze, giving her glimpses of the open maw of the night sky, with its twinkling teeth of stars.
Freedom, above.
So far away.
Briefly she thinks of stepping into the smoke, breathing deeply. Or onto the flaming timbers that begin to crackle once again, slowly burning their way through the floor on which they’ve landed. Asphyxia or incineration are her only choices.
But no. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that if she’s survived everything thus far, she will not give up lightly. She pulls the thin straw-filled sack of a mattress from the bed she’s slept in all these months—not a proper bunk as she’s in one of the last cells to be added to this ship, which does not sail anywhere, so no care has been given to ensuring beds are nailed down and secure—and exposes the slats she feels against her bony back each night. Cordelia throws the mattress-sack away; it lands on the pile of planks and the fire grows large with new fodder. She heaves the rickety frame onto its short end and prays it will be strong enough and long enough.
As she steps to the first rung, her skirt kicks back with the movement and brushes against the inferno of the mattress. The line of flame she’d only imagined becomes a reality, leaping up her poor calico gown, strangely focused as it moves to her left forearm, upper arm, shoulder, nibbles at her hair. She hears the creaking and complaining of the ship as its body is consumed and in the coldest part of her brain she knows that if she stops to swat the flares, she will surely die; she will lose her chance, her momentum, her precious few seconds to get out.
A Feast of Sorrows, Stories Page 27
