by Merry Farmer
“Agreed,” Lawrence said, though he wasn’t happy about it. He lifted his eyes to Matty. “Will you come.”
Matty’s heart twisted with fear in her chest. Her hands shook and the certainty that nothing good could come next filled her. But Lawrence seemed so confident, had so much faith in his friends and the power of what was right. She wished she could share that confidence.
“All right,” she said at length, her voice small.
“Good. Let’s go.” Lawrence took her hand as Marshall bent to pick up her carpetbag.
“I can’t go with you,” Jason said. “Other than the fact that I look a fright and haven’t fully recovered, Flossie is ill.” He peeked over his shoulder at the open door to his bedroom.
Matty hadn’t noticed Flossie, pale and small, asleep in Jason’s bed. Her brow flew up. Lawrence had told her Flossie and Jason were involved in a love affair, but she hadn’t given it much thought with her own troubles breathing down her neck. She found the whole thing rather sweet.
“Please stay here,” she said, forcing a smile. “You’re right. Flossie needs you. We all need our loved ones.”
Jason’s shoulders relaxed and he nodded to Matty with a sigh.
Lawrence took her arm, and together with Marshall, they headed out of Jason’s suite, down the stairs, and out into Brynthwaite. The police station was several blocks away from the hotel, and they couldn’t help but draw attention as the three of them strode down the street. With Lawrence on one side and Marshall on the other, they walked swiftly, dodging around a few people who were out for a more leisurely stroll or on errands. Matty would have given anything to blend in with them, to be just another face in the crowd. In her heart, she knew she would never be that face in the crowd again. Even if she did make it through this alive, she would forever be branded as the woman who was accused of murder.
They were less than a block from the police station when a growling shout from a side alley sent her heart pounding through her chest. They stopped in time to see Hoag glaring at them several yards away. For a moment, Matty’s vision went black around the edges, and her body swayed in a faint. Lawrence caught her.
“I’ll get you, you little bitch,” Hoag bellowed. “I’ll make you burn!”
It was only after Lawrence and Marshall rushed her on that the rest of the details penetrated the fear that gripped her. Bobbo was with Hoag, holding him back. The two wrestled, but Bobbo kept Hoag from coming after her at least long enough for Lawrence and Marshall to speed her into the police station.
“What’s this?” a man in uniform asked as soon as they were inside of the station.
“We’ve come to turn in Mathilda Wright, suspected of murder,” Marshall said on their behalf. Lawrence’s jaw flexed with determination, and Matty was completely beyond speech.
“What the devil?” the man who greeted them started.
“I’ll handle this,” a taller man in a more elaborate uniform said, striding into the room.
“She’s turning herself in, Constable Dodge,” Marshall told the man. “Voluntarily. And she’s with child, so she deserves kind treatment.”
“Kind treatment, eh?” Dodge said, looking her up and down. “With child?” He snorted and winked at Lawrence.
Lawrence surged forward, fist formed. He held himself back, but Dodge still jerked away, raising his hands in defense.
“Matty is turning herself in,” Marshall repeated, “which means she is also putting herself under your full protection. You know as well as I do that Trevor Hoag is after her, so it is up to you to keep her safe until she can be transferred to Kendal for trial.”
“Kendal?” Dodge blinked in surprise.
Matty was never so glad to have Marshall Pycroft for a friend as she was then. He was far cleverer than she’d given him credit for, as clever as Jason Throckmorton. Without making overt demands, he was dictating exactly what he wanted, what they all needed.
“Kendal is the administrative seat of the county. Matty will need to stand trial for murder, and that trial will take place in Kendal. So you’d better telegraph their police station now and prepare to have her transferred.”
“Well…I…that is to say….” Dodge had no answer. He cleared his throat, stood straighter, and tugged at the bottom of his coat. “Brandes. Send a telegraph to our friends in Kendal asking how they would like to proceed,” he ordered one of the other officers.
“Yes, sir,” Brandes answered, then edged around the scene and out to the street.
Dodge cleared his throat again, put on his most grave expression, and stepped up to Matty. “Mathilda Wright, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Philomena Hoag.”
Episode Eleven - A Crisis Point
Matty
Kendal Prison was dark, hot, and malodorous. With only a few small, barred windows well above eye-level and little water for washing, the smell of anxious bodies and second-rate food gone rotten was inescapable. The only hint of a breeze came from the long barred wall at one end of the stuffy cell.
Matty paced in front of those bars, hugging herself tightly. Her heart raced, adding to the sheen of sweat that slicked her face and back.
“Cheer up, dearie,” one of her cell mates, Lottie, taunted her from the far corner. “That handsome man of yours is sure to come any moment now. Unless he’s moved on to shagging some other piece of skirt.”
Lottie laughed, their other cellmate, Kate, cackling with her.
“I got a good look at him yesterday,” Kate said in her gravely alto. “Fine specimen of a man, that one. Like a wild gypsy.”
“I’d run away with him,” Lottie agreed. “I’d do a lot with him.”
“How about you, missy?” Kate called to Matty. “What you do with him, eh?”
“I bet she’s got stories to tell,” Lottie went on when Matty ignored them. “A man like that’s like to have your ankles up over your shoulders half the night, driving away like he’s mining coal.”
Kate laughed. “Bet he knows how to fill a girl’s fanny. How big is he, love? He make you scream when he goes at you?”
Matty scowled, stomach turning. She’d had no trouble with morning sickness since learning she was with child, but something about the prison had brought it on. With a hard swallow, she continued her pacing, fighting not to let Lottie and Kate’s teasing touch her.
“Oy, next time he comes in here, we should see if he wants a port to park his ship,” Kate said. “I get out soon. Might as well celebrate. Haven’t had a man for a while.” She lifted her skirt to rub near the top of her thigh.
Matty grunted in disgust at the gesture.
“What’s wrong, love?” Lottie asked with mock concern. “You don’t like a little stroke now and then?”
“Maybe she’s doing it wrong,” Kate replied. “Here, let me show you how it’s done.”
Kate pushed away from the wall and sidled closer to Matty. She snatched at Matty’s skirt, lifting it above her knee and reaching for her leg.
“Get off of me,” Matty shouted, jerking away, fists clenched.
“Watch out there, Kate,” Lottie snorted. “That one’s a murderess, she is.”
“Oh?” Kate made a surprised face, licking her lips. “You gonna kill me, love?”
“Stay away from me.” Matty turned her back on Kate and Lottie both, fleeing to the far end of the cell and pressing herself against the bars.
Turning herself in had been a terrible idea, just as she suspected it would be. She was happy at Mother Grace’s, in the forest. She loved the fresh air, the sounds of nature. Her life before had been devoid of growing things, but in the few short weeks she’d spent in the forest, she’d learned the names of so many plants and flowers, discovered the uses they had, even learned to prepare medicines and teas, all under Mother Grace’s tutelage. Mother Grace was so different than her own mother. She was warm and kind and caring. It was easy to see why Lawrence—and Jason Throckmorton and even Marshall Pycroft, in his own way—was so devoted to her.
She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead into the cold bars of her cell. What possible good could come of abandoning her to the fickleness of the law and to the likes of Lottie and Kate?
“There, there, sweetie,” Lottie cooed from her place at the opposite corner of the cell. “It ain’t as bad as all that. ’Least with you being in the family way, they won’t hang you straight away when the judge brings his gavel down.”
“Right that,” Kate agreed, slinking back to the broken bench she’d claimed as her seat. “Once that baby is born, they’ll pull it, bloody and screaming, right out of you. Then they’ll tighten the noose on up and string you from the rafters in the delivery room while you’re still gushing.” She cackled at her own story.
Matty swallowed hard and pressed her eyes and lips shut. She would not let herself visualize the scene. She would not give up hope and accept that was her fate.
“Who knows if that fine man of yours will raise your babe up right?” Lottie asked.
“My money’s on him selling it off to the gypsies,” Kate added. “Better still, since he looks like a gypsy himself, he might just raise it up to be a thief and a scourge.”
“If he even wants a babe.” Lottie fed into the story. “Men like that, men that’re so free with their favors—they don’t want babies around. No, my guess is he’ll leave it by the side of the road for some beggar to keep.”
Matty clenched her jaw, wanting nothing more than to press her hands to her ears. They were deliberately baiting her, taunting her and trying to get her to break. She would not break. She would not.
The rattle of keys at the end of the hall where Matty’s cell and two others stood snapped her eyes open. Keys meant either food or visitors, and it wasn’t mealtime. She gripped the bars, breath coming in shallow gasps, praying for Lawrence.
“Mathilda Wright. You’ve got some visitors,” the jailor called from the end of the hall.
Matty couldn’t see him, but she pressed herself against the bars in anticipation.
A split-second later, she yanked back with a gasp. The man who the jailor led to the end of the hall where her cell stood was not Lawrence. As she backpedaled into the middle of the cell, the melted face and massive bulk of Hoag slid into view.
Hoag grinned at her, his teeth yellowed and the burned flesh on one side of his face dull red. He walked with a limp that he hadn’t had last time she’d seen him this close, but the sheer, muscular presence of him was every bit as terrifying as she remembered. His stench overpowered even the rank smell of the prison.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he growled, like stone grinding against metal.
“You’ve got ten minutes,” the jailor told him, then beat a speedy retreat down the hall.
Matty froze in her spot. The sweat that dripped down her back was cold now. Her hands hung useless at her sides. She couldn’t catch her breath. Stark flashes of the night Hoag had killed her mother slammed into her—the smell of the fire, the sharpness of her mother’s screams, then the gurgle of her choked cries. Her own protests from that night felt like cotton stuffing her mouth now, strangling her as Hoag had strangled her mother.
“Come now, that’s no way to greet your daddy,” Hoag rumbled.
“You’re not my father,” Matty managed to say.
A shuffle of movement behind Hoag caught her attention, and her brow shot up. Hoag hadn’t come alone. Connie cowered in the shadows behind him, Willy and Elsie clutching the back of her skirts. Hoag had brought the children with him.
All at once, a hundred forgotten emotions swept back through Matty. Guilt, desperation, worry, and love. How could she have forgotten her brother and sisters? They had been the only comfort that each other had. They had looked to her for help and protection. She had let them down.
She clapped her hands to her mouth to hide the pain that twisted through her heart, meeting Connie’s frightened eyes with as much apology as she could muster.
Hoag caught the look and turned to stare from Matty to Connie and back again. “Yeah, I brought the little ’uns with me,” he sniffed. “Couldn’t let the motherless mongrels sit home like the lazy shits they are. Figured I’d bring ’em here and put ’em to good use. Those two have made a load begging in the streets. And this one.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Connie. “She’s been fetching quite a fine sum at night, sweet little thing.”
Matty swallowed the bile that surged up her throat as Connie lowered her eyes in shame. Connie: who wasn’t more than twelve years old, who had only the faintest hints of a woman’s body. Hate rose up in place of the fear Hoag inspired in her. He’d sold Connie to get back at her. She could see it in the cruel smirk he wore as she put the pieces together.
“You’re a monster,” Matty whispered through clenched teeth.
“Say that again?” Hoag inched closer to the bars, holding a hand to his destroyed ear. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Monster,” she repeated, only a fraction louder.
“Come on now, love. Say it so we can all hear it. So we can all hear just how much murder you have in your heart.” Hoag’s eyes burned with cunning.
Matty took a step back from the bars. She couldn’t say anything. If she showed the slightest hint of hatred, Hoag would use it against her. Instead of focusing on him, she looked to her siblings. Had Hoag truly brought them here to make money or was he using them somehow, using them to get her to crack or accuse herself?
She met Elsie’s wide, hollow eyes, then Willy’s. “It’ll be all right,” she repeated the words that Lawrence told her so often. “I promise you, it will be all right.”
Hoag snorted. “Hear that?” he told the young ones. “More lies. Did she save you when I beat you senseless? Did she feed you when I didn’t?” He looked at Connie. “Did she come save you when that old rodgerer lifted your skirts? Did she?”
Elsie and Willy shook their heads as if they were trained to do it. Connie was slower to react, but she schooled her face to sadness and lowered her head.
Matty rocked from foot-to-foot. Hoag hadn’t brought the children to punish her. He was using her to destroy any shred of hope or trust they might have.
“That there is a dead woman,” he told them. “She can’t help you. No one can help you but me. She’ll hang. Hang for killing your ma. That’s what she’ll do. Killed her in cold blood, without a thought for you.”
“I didn’t,” Matty said.
Hoag snapped a vicious scowl up to her. Matty stepped back. She met Connie’s eyes—eyes filled with terror, and something else.
“You’ll hang, all right,” Hoag went on, pressing himself right up against the bars of the cell. “It’s just a bloody shame that I didn’t get to you first. I would have cut you to shreds and burned the pieces,” he growled, voice lower and lower with each word. “That blacksmith of yours had better watch his back or he’ll burn too.”
Trembling from head to toe, Matty could do nothing but stand where she was, unable to speak. Hoag held her gaze, darkness and evil in his eyes. The man had no soul.
He broke his stare after what felt like an hour and pushed back from the bars. With a sniff he said, “Come along, children. We’ve got work to do.”
With a final, deadly sneer, he turned and marched down the hall. Matty couldn’t see him or the children following him after a few feet, but she heard the rattle of keys and the open and shut of the door at the end of the hall. Even then, she had a hard time letting out the breath that squeezed her chest.
The silence in the cell
was broken when Lottie said, “Oy, dearie, I didn’t know.” Her voice was quiet, genuine. All teasing was gone.
Slowly, Matty turned to look at her cellmates.
“You’re pale as a ghost, love,” Kate said. The sneer was gone from her face, replaced by an echo of sadness.
The sudden change in their attitude was too much to register. The encounter—brief as it was—had sucked all of the hope out of her. Hoag was a devil, and he would win.
She sank to the ground where she was, collapsing into a ball and resting her head on her knees. She didn’t even have tears to cry. There was nothing left.
The low rattle of the door at the end of the hall opening sounded again. Matty didn’t look up. If it was Lawrence, then he was too close to Hoag. Hoag would find him and kill him, and then she would truly have nothing left to live for. She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Lawrence now.
“Matty.”
Matty sucked in a breath and snapped her head up. Instead of Lawrence, Connie stood on the other side of the bars. She sent a terrified glance down the hall toward the door, then met Matty’s eyes with pleading.
“Connie?” Matty scrambled across the straw littering the floor of the cell until she knelt, gripping the bars.
Connie squatted to bring her face inches away from Matty’s. “I’m so frightened,” her half-sister said, bursting into tears.
Matty’s tears flowed along with hers. “I’m so sorry, Connie. I should have been there to protect you. I should never had left. I…I lost my memory. I couldn’t remember what happened for weeks.”
“I wish I could forget it,” Connie sobbed. She clasped her hands around Matty’s on the bars. “Everything has been a nightmare since then. Dad has gone mad with fury. He wants to kill you and the man you’re with, and everyone else who stands against him. He would kill me too if I didn’t do everything he said.” Her words came in quick, breathless pants.
“Has he hurt you?”
She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and lowering her head. A moment later, she sucked in a breath and lifted her head to meet Matty’s eyes. “I’ve kept him from hurting the little ones, though. Other than a few beatings. It’s me he’s taken the bulk of it out on. I think he knows.”
