by Vanessa Tait
She could have cried. She forced down another quarter of the bottle and sank back on the bench. After a while she did feel a little better, a little warmer. These would be her last drops. She was certain of it.
Rebecca lay back on the bench and fell into a fitful sleep. She dozed as a sea turtle does, grappling between two states, darkness and light, water and air. Time passed in a thousand pieces. She roused herself and saw Alexander and had a conversation with him. And then she realized she had only been speaking with spirits, or demons, and then she sank back down again.
A moment later, or so it seemed, she was roused by a gentleman in a top hat who spoke to her most insistently.
‘Madam. Madam! Are you well?’
Her mouth had wool in it, her eyes had grit. She nodded, drew her cloak tighter round herself and made as if to sleep again.
His expression changed. ‘I don’t think you should sleep there. Have you no home to go to?’
‘I – have not.’
‘Well then, let me take you somewhere. A home, for people such as yourself. A warm bed. Porridge.’ He stood over her, obscuring the light.
‘No! Thank you. I do have a home. Only my husband is at work, and my maid is … on her holidays. And I have forgotten my key.’
‘Does your husband not have a key? And who locked it, if you did not?’ The gentleman tried to get a look at her hand, to see if the finger bulged with a wedding ring behind her gloves.
‘He has no key. And my maid …’
‘Why don’t you come along with me? Come now, I know all about women such as yourself,’ said the man.
Rebecca turned her head. ‘Oh go away, won’t you, and leave me alone!’
‘That is no way to—’
‘It is none of your business why I am here. Go away, I tell you, otherwise I shall scream!’
‘Now, now, calm down. I only meant to help you. I think you don’t know what you say.’ But he was backing away.
‘I shall scream!’ said Rebecca again. The man shook his head at her, his sorrow turned to scorn.
And then she slept again, or half-slept. The difference between night and day, waking and sleeping, was nothing. And if dreams carried as much weight as wakefulness did, who was to say which one ought to be called reality?
There was Alexander’s voice again, coming persuasively up the stairs. She must confront him, she must go down. ‘I saw you,’ she meant to say, ‘and you saw me. I know what you did to Eva. She is dead because of you. Let that be an end to it, our marriage, and pretence.’
He smiled. ‘There can never be an end to our marriage, you must know that.’ He spoke with force, getting closer to her with each word. ‘I still need a wife. If you thought so you are much mistaken of shoulton earshots carparta shin.’ He kept speaking but now only the tone was understandable, not the words: insistent, assured, persuasive.
CHAPTER 22
When darkness fell Rebecca went home. Even though she had spent the afternoon half asleep, she was still more tired than she could remember. She could fall down in her bed and sleep for nights and days.
She would sleep and then think what to do.
But as soon as she stepped inside she heard the men, talking in the parlour. A great weariness overtook her. Where would she go, then? She had nowhere. She must creep up to her bedroom unnoticed and sleep and then think what to do.
‘I have arranged everything. We may continue, we may continue, hmmm? After all our work, that is the important thing,’ said Mr Badcock.
‘We may, and we must,’ said Alexander. ‘I have already some important information stemming from it. But it is ever more important that Rebecca comply, that I keep her close.’
Rebecca put her hand to her throat and turned her head.
‘And if she does not comply, I mean, if she is not a good subject, we will have to end it. Which would press us most terribly after all our work, hmmm?’
‘We will still be able to speak in front of the Society, I think.’
‘Oh yes, whatever happens, still that, yes.’
Rebecca must go out again, anywhere. But in her haste she clattered the chair against the wall and before she could get to the door Alexander was there, standing in front of her.
‘I have been expecting you all day,’ he said. She looked for a trace of the man she had seen last night. He looked drawn, he mustn’t have slept either, but that was all. ‘And now you are going out again.’
‘No – I am going to my room.’ She tried to get to the stairs but Mr Badcock skipped over and now they both stood in front of her.
‘Come to the parlour for a moment – only a moment, hmmm?’
‘But I am tired,’ said Rebecca. ‘I do not feel like talking.’
Mr Badcock took hold of her arm and pulled her towards the parlour. ‘Come now, hmmm? And join our celebration. For we have heard today that our paper has been accepted to be read at the Royal Society. The Royal Society!’ He rolled out the R wetly on the tip of his tongue. ‘Home of Joseph Black and any other chemist of note. I think it will mark the beginning of our fame. Do not struggle, we only mean the best for you. You are grown quite wild! Hasn’t she, Alexander? Quite wild.’
‘You see now what I have on my hands,’ said Alexander, a muscle jumping in his cheek.
‘I think the death of a friend is one of life’s very worst tricks,’ said Mr Badcock. ‘I think we must make allowances for her, Alexander, today.’
‘And yet Evangeline should never have been a friend. Not at all. But what I cannot fathom is how Evangeline came to be in the pharmacy.’
‘Was she?’ Rebecca stammered out.
‘You know she was. Lionel told you.’
The clock ticked slowly round, and Rebecca’s heart ticked with it, only she felt as if hers might stop. ‘Evangeline wanted to get better. She thought you would make her better. She said the heroin might be the cure, you said it might be the cure!’
‘Come now, whores die for many different reasons.’
Tears stung at the corners of her eyes. ‘Will there be an investigation?’
‘Oh no, constables do not bother much with fallen women. He came and he went.’
‘She is dead, poor thing,’ said Mr Badcock. ‘And do you mind?’
‘Do I mind? She was my only friend, despite it all!’ Now the weight pressed into her heart and caused a sob to escape from her mouth.
‘Yes, but what quality is it, your grief?’
Rebecca pressed her face into the seams of the sofa. In the silence she could feel Eva looking down upon them, watching.
‘You long for your medicine,’ Alexander continued, when she said nothing, ‘and that brings tears easily. But I think that the salts are not strong enough.’
She started. She had seen him at the bawdy house and he meant to punish her.
‘No, the salts do nothing against it,’ said Mr Badcock. ‘Even though the salts have been your friend these past months, have kept you on – how to say it? – an even keel. An even keel! You have not toppled, not toppled at all, on the contrary, you have steered a largely straight path.’
‘Largely straight,’ said Alexander, rubbing his chin. ‘Though not entirely.’
‘In terms of mood and—’
‘Not behaviour, but I think we can fix that, yes, ’tis so.’
She jumped up from the sofa. ‘I must go to my room!’ But Alexander’s hand gripped her arm and he pushed her back down.
‘I don’t think it worth giving you the salts, my dear,’ Mr Badcock continued, as if she had not spoken, ‘when we have something much better.’
‘But she knows it already,’ said Alexander. ‘Evangeline must’ve told her. And yet you do not seem pleased! Does she, John? She does not seem pleased, though I work night and day for it, for her, and for all of her sex!’ Alexander let his eyes close and in his face, just for a moment, Rebecca saw an image of the man she had seen at the toffer’s. Then his eyes opened again. ‘But I cannot expect gratitude.’
&n
bsp; ‘Perhaps the death of her friend works on her still.’ Mr Badcock moved towards the side table upon which lay a smooth brown case, just the same as Eva’s.
It was the same as Eva’s. They must have picked it up from the pharmacy floor. Fear gripped Rebecca as hard as her corset used to do. She put one hand to the fireplace and felt the chill of the marble as a kind of burning. P’raps, if she could only keep the men talking, they may forget themselves for long enough for her to run at the crack in the door and get through it.
‘She knows the new way, and she does not like it! But she will, soon enough, hmmm?’ Mr Badcock went on. ‘Just as Evangeline did.’
‘I know,’ she said, her voice faltering. ‘Your medicine will change the world.’ Her breath was coming hard. ‘A marvellous cure!’
‘The needle, John!’
‘Ah yes, the syringe.’ Mr Badcock snapped open the lid. ‘Far more efficient.’
‘Roll down your stocking,’ said Alexander.
‘I won’t!’ They meant to kill her. Kill her for what she had seen. She shook off Alexander’s hand and leapt up from the sofa, knocking into Mr Badcock, who grunted in surprise. The door was only five feet away, she could see the hall through it, and beyond, the front door, and beyond that, freedom! But the heel of her shoe caught on the rug and brought her knee and hands slamming down onto the wooden floorboards. She hardly felt it, for Alexander got to her a moment later, and pinned her down with his knee.
‘Come now, wife.’ A little thread of spit hung from his mouth as he worked to hold her. ‘I don’t know why you struggle so. It is only for your own good. You have not the temperament to take on the blows of life alone. Haven’t you said so yourself? And by the by, I found a letter, an old letter of yours. I forget whom it was from.’
He had not forgotten, she could see it in the jump of his jaw.
‘A derivative name of some kind. A married woman ought not to keep such a letter. It would give people the wrong idea, if they were to find it. And I have a little bird in my grasp. I know what you have been up to.’ Alexander still held her with his knee. Dark hair was growing on his cheek, the only sign of the night he had been through. And a twitch near his eye, which gave the illusion of a sudden grin.
Well, she would die then, just as Eva had done. ‘Fuck you and fuck you too!’ she spat.
‘Oh I say! I think she may be losing her mind, hmmm? Do you think it?’ said Mr Badcock.
Rebecca turned on him. ‘And you! You are nothing but a letch and a goat.’
Mr Badcock’s jowls fell. ‘Come now,’ he said more grimly, ‘I think she may be mad after all. Fill her up with the syringe now, won’t you?’
‘You almost ruined my maid, and would’ve too, if Lionel had not come by.’
‘That was japes, old boy, nothing but japes, eh?’ Mr Badcock spoke to Alexander.
‘Japes it is to force yourself on a virgin girl hardly past puberty? What a tiny prick you have, by all accounts!’
Mr Badcock paled and for a moment his grip on her slackened. ‘What words! Foul words, where did you learn to talk like that?’
But Alexander had paused. ‘Is this true, John? Because such things lead to rumours and if a man’s home is not respectable—’
‘Not true at all! She is lying to cause trouble. The syringe, Alexander, for God’s sake. Shut her up, shut her up!’ Mr Badcock’s grip tightened on her leg, his nails cutting through her stocking. Rebecca kicked at him and succeeded in landing a blow in the fat of his belly with her knee.
‘You will not shut me up. You are both the worst kind of men God must have put on this earth! For we have not talked of last night, have we, husband dear? At the bawdy house – the house of flagellation, the one that all the newspapers wring their hands over? That is your true home! And that is not respectable, oh that is the last thing it is!’
‘Whatever is she talking of, Alexander?’
‘Nothing, she is growing insensible! She is foaming at the mouth, look there. All this foul language is a sign of her falling away into madness – but I think the new medicine— Stop her kicking, I say, John—’
Mr Badcock did not know! ‘Ask him, ask my husband, how he likes to spend his nights! With his head in a shoe, a shoe that is more like a quim, and his arse in the air!’
‘What?’ said Mr Badcock.
‘Eva took me to see my dear husband, at the house of flagellation, where he got his prick out and he was just as pathetic as a worm and as dirty.’ Rebecca struggled again. ‘I will show you, I found the same shoe in his study, if you do not believe me!’
‘No need to bother with the stockings in this case, I think,’ Alexander pulled up her skirt to her hips. The cold air slapped against her thigh.
‘What? Prostitution?’ said Mr Badcock.
‘No matter, John, now. Leave it alone. Disarray is what she wants and why we must silence her. Hold her tighter!’
Mr Badcock, breathing hard through his teeth, forced her thigh straight with both his hands and knelt on her other leg, which she still tried to thrash about. ‘It will help you if you keep still, hmmm?’
‘Leave off!’ Alexander slapped her round the face; her cheek struck the floor on the other side. He had the syringe in his fist and raised it up.
At that moment Rebecca brought up her knee – Mr Badcock’s arms were flabby after all – and landed a great blow to Alexander’s chest. The point of the syringe jabbed into his hand. He loosened his grip.
‘Goddammit, she has done me an injury!’ A bead of blood oozed its way from Alexander’s palm. He paled. ‘I am hurt. Hold her now!’
Rebecca got an arm free and reached into her hair and drew out a pin. She brought round her hand so fast that Alexander had not even the time to defend himself, he had only time to let out a shriek, a yell, a curse.
‘What have you done?’ he cried, dropping the syringe and holding onto his neck. Mr Badcock clung grimly to one thigh but he was staring in shock at his friend, who was on both knees now and moaning as a trickle of blood ran down his neck.
‘Alexander – are you wounded?’
Rebecca span and twisted and in a few more thrusts shook herself free.
‘Get after her!’ Alexander said through gritted teeth, holding onto his neck with both hands.
Rebecca picked up her skirts and ran, sending the door banging back on its hinges, through the hall and to the door. She wrenched it open and got out onto the street, the air freezing on her bare skin.
Behind her came a shout, but she did not turn round to see. She only ran, fear driving away her exhaustion.
CHAPTER 23
Where should she go? Not towards the Old Town. Somewhere out of the New Town. Only keep the house on Albany Street behind her!
Another shout, of rage and venom. She turned around now – she could not help it. Mr Badcock stood on the steps, the colour of a poisonous berry. He saw her and raised his arm towards her and shouted again. ‘You whore!’
A woman on the pavement put her hand to her mouth.
She must run. Run!! Pick up her skirts and run! She must not trip, not stumble – only go.
Mr Badcock stepped onto the street and came after her, waistcoats flapping.
She must not mind the people who stopped and stared. She must not go her usual route, south, towards Eva. She must lose him in the backstreets.
Up the street, to the end of it and sharp round the corner. ‘Help me!’ she gasped out, to someone, a man in a top coat, coming towards her. But he frowned, only frowned, staring at her bare head, her sweat, her pallor.
‘She is not in her right mind!’ shouted up Mr Badcock, coming fast behind. ‘Detain her, I am afraid she will do herself an injury!’
The man made a grab for her. ‘Escaped from your nurse, have you?’ But she ran around him and twisted away, stumbling over a loose stone, pain shooting up past her ankle.
She got to the second corner and looked to the left and right. She cannot ask for help – she will not be believed. He wi
ll get her and drag her back to the house.
‘You think you can outrun me, you hussy?’ Mr Badcock wheezed. ‘You are a women, no woman can outrun me!’
Rebecca looked again, to see how far away he was. Ten feet, a little more. His arms swung over his stomach as he ran and his fob watch hit him in the belly at every stride.
‘Stop that women, she is mad! Stop her!’ he cried out between breaths.
An old man bent across her path to leer. ‘Alas, my running days are past me. What’s she done?’
Rebecca’s feet were bad. She was still in the same pair of shoes that she had snatched up last night, made for the house, her toes had almost pushed their way through the front of them and she had a patch at her ankle that grated with every step. That alone was enough to make her weep, but, as well as that, the laudanum Mrs Shrivenham had sold her had not been enough. Sweat fell off her in sheets; her bodice was soaked through.
‘Don’t know why you’re chasing her. Looks too cheap to bother with!’
‘Catch her for me, will you?’ shouted Mr Badcock.
‘Not likely. Wouldn’t like to dirty my hands!’
Rebecca had left behind her the familiar part of Edinburgh; now she ran, though her lungs burned with the effort of it, down a wide street with evenly planted trees that she had never come to before.
‘Go on, dearie, run, whatever it is you’ve done to him,’ said a woman, leaning against a tree, dressed twenty years younger than her face showed. ‘I shall stick my foot out for you.’
‘He wants to kill me!’ Rebecca managed to get out.
‘They all do, my dear. They all do!’
Rebecca forced herself on a few steps more and then looked back. The woman had done as she promised, Mr Badcock was not sprawled on the floor, but his pace had slowed and he was cursing. Rebecca put her hands to her side and pressed.
‘I’ll have you for that!’ he cried, but the woman laughed and spun away from him.
‘I doubt it, dearie, unless you’ve a shilling to spare!’
