The Silent Companions

by Laura Purcell

  ‘This way,’ said Jolyon, turning left.

  Puffs of dust rose beneath Elsie’s feet as she followed, her damp skirts swishing against the carpet. The corridor conveyed an air of shabby grandeur. Tapestry sofas lurked against the walls with chipped marble busts dotted in between. They were horrible things, watching her with dead expressions, shadows creeping over their cheekbones and sinking into the sockets of their eyes. She didn’t recognise any as famous writers or philosophers. Perhaps they were previous owners of The Bridge? She searched their impassive faces for a trace of Rupert but found none.

  Jolyon took a turn to the right, then another quickly to the left. They came up against an arched door. ‘This is the guest suite,’ he explained. ‘I thought you would be comfortable here, Miss Bainbridge.’

  Sarah blinked. ‘A suite, just for me?’

  ‘Yes indeed.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘Your box is in there. I will sleep down the hall by the servants’ stairs.’ He gestured with a sweep of his arm. ‘Mrs Bainbridge is in a mirror suite on the other wing.’

  Elsie raised her eyebrows. A mirror suite. Was that the level to which she had sunk? ‘How thrilling. We’ll be just like twins.’ She tried to keep the tartness from her voice but feared she did not succeed.

  ‘I will just settle in,’ Sarah said awkwardly. ‘Then I will come and help you dress, Mrs Bainbridge.’

  ‘Take all the time you need,’ said Jolyon. ‘I will show my sister to her room. Then we will enjoy a late dinner together.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Grabbing Elsie’s arm, he frogmarched her back the way they had come. ‘You must not treat Sarah like a servant,’ he grunted.

  ‘Indeed I won’t, for she does no work to earn her living. She is a spinster here on my charity, is she not?’

  ‘She was the only family Bainbridge had.’

  Elsie tossed her head. ‘That is not true. I was Rupert’s family. I was his next of kin.’

  ‘Oh yes, you managed to convince him of that.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  Jolyon slowed to a halt. He peered over his shoulder, checking there were no servants loitering in the shadows. ‘I am sorry. That was crass of me. It is not your fault. But I thought Bainbridge and I had agreed, before the marriage, exactly what would happen in this situation. It was a gentleman’s agreement. But Bainbridge . . .’

  Unease crept into her stomach. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘He did not tell you? Bainbridge changed his will a month before he died. His solicitor read it to me.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘He left it all to you. Everything. The house in London, The Bridge, his share in the match factory. No one else benefits in the least.’

  Of course he did. A month ago – that was when she told him about the baby.

  To think that after all she had been through, she had managed to marry a considerate man, a prudent man – and lost him. Careless, Ma would have said. Just like you, Elisabeth.

  ‘Is it strange that he should change his will? I am his wife, I am carrying his child. Surely the arrangement is perfectly natural?’

  ‘It would be. A year or two down the line and I would have no quarrel with it.’ Shaking his head, he moved off down the corridor.

  She tried to keep up, unable to concentrate on the path he took; the wine-red walls seemed to billow like cloth. ‘I don’t understand. Rupert has acted like an angel. This is the answer to my prayers.’

  ‘No, it is not. Think, Elsie, think! How does it look? A man everyone thought was a confirmed bachelor marries a woman ten years his junior and invests in her brother’s factory. He changes his will to make her the sole beneficiary. Then, a mere month later, he is dead. A man who appeared as strong as an ox is dead, and nobody knows how.’

  Glacier crystals formed in her chest. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. No one would suggest—’

  ‘Oh, they are suggesting it, I assure you. And whispering it. Think of the match factory. Think of my good name! I have to steer through this storm of gossip, alone.’

  She stumbled. That was why Jolyon wanted her in the country, why he refused to move Rupert’s body back to London for burial: scandal.

  She remembered the last scandal. Police officers in their iron hats, taking down statements. The whispers that buzzed in her wake like a trail of flies and those hungry, pointed looks. Years of it. It would take years to fade away.

  ‘Dear God, Jo. How long will the baby and I have to stay in this place?’

  He flinched. For the first time, she noticed the pain shining in his eyes. ‘Damn it, Elsie, what is wrong with you? I am telling you about a stain on our name, on the factory, and all you can think about is how long you will be away from London. Do you even miss Rupert?’

  She missed him like air. ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Well, I must say you do a good job of hiding it. He was a good man, a great man. Without him we would have lost the factory.’

  ‘I know.’

  He stopped at the end of the corridor. ‘This is your room. Perhaps once you are settled inside, you will have the decency to grieve.’

  ‘I am grieving,’ she snapped. ‘I just do it in a different manner to you.’ Pushing past him, she flung open the door and slammed it behind her.

  She closed her eyes and leant back, both palms flat against the wood, before she exhaled and sank to the floor. Jolyon had always been so. She should not take his words to heart. Twelve years her junior, he had always been at leisure to feel, to cry. It was Elsie who endured. And hadn’t that been the point? To keep little Jolyon in ignorance of what she suffered?

  After a few minutes, she was mistress of herself. She rubbed her forehead and opened her eyes. A clean, bright room lay before her with windows on either side, one facing out to the semicircle of russet trees that embraced the house and the other angled across at the west wing, where Sarah was staying. Her trunks lay heaped in the corner. A fire sizzled in the grate and Elsie was relieved to see a washstand beside it. Strands of steam rose from the ewer. Hot water.

  She heard Ma’s voice, clear in her ear. Silly girl, making such a fuss. Let’s wash all those bad thoughts away.

  Climbing to her feet, she stripped off her gloves and went to splash her face. Her sore eyes instantly felt better and the towel she used to wipe her skin was wonderfully soft – whatever the flaws of the place, she could not fault the housekeeper.

  A heavy four-poster bed carved in rosewood loomed against the far wall. Cream bedclothes embroidered with flowers were spread across it. Then came the dressing table, its three-piece mirror swathed in black fabric. She sighed. It was the first looking glass she had seen since leaving the station. Time to assess the damage done by her tumble in the mud.

  Placing the towel back on its rail, she walked over and sat on the stool. She drew the black material aside. It was a foolish superstition: covering mirrors to stop the dead from becoming trapped. Nothing was held inside the glass except three blonde-haired, brown-eyed women, each one a sorry state. Her gauze veil fluttered at the nape of her neck like a netted crow. Windblown curls frizzed around her forehead and, despite her brief wash, a smear of mud remained on her right cheekbone. Elsie scrubbed until it melted away. Thank goodness she had refused to see the servants.

  Slowly, she reached up her weary arms to remove her bonnet and cap, and begin the long task of unpinning her hair. Her fingers were not as nimble as they used to be – she had grown accustomed to having Rosie do it. But Rosie and all the comforts of that past life were miles away.

  A pin snagged on a tangle and made her gasp. She dropped her hands, upset beyond reason at this small annoyance. How did this happen? she asked the dishevelled women before her. They had no answer.

  The glass here was cold and harsh. It did not contain the smiling, pretty bride she had stared at such a short time ago. Unbidden, a scene rose up in her memory: Rupert, standing behind her that first night and brushing her hair. Pride in his face, flashes of the si
lver-backed brush. A feeling of safety and trust, so rare, as she considered his reversed image. She could have loved him.

  The marriage was a business relationship, cement to secure Rupert’s investment in the match factory, but that night she had truly looked at the man and realised she could grow to love him. In time. Alas, time was the one thing they did not have.

  A tap at the door made her start.

  ‘Buttons?’ Sarah’s voice.

  ‘Yes. Come in, Sarah.’

  Sarah had swapped her travelling dress for an evening gown that had seen better days. Black dye mottled it in uneven patches. She hardly looked presentable, but at least she’d plaited her mousy hair. ‘Have you chosen a gown? I could ask one of the maids if there is a flatiron . . .’

  ‘No. Please just dig out a nightgown.’ If Jolyon wanted her to grieve, that’s what she would do. She would act exactly as he had, after Ma. That would serve him. He would see how irritating and useless it was to have her whimpering upstairs.

  Sarah’s reflection twisted its hands in the mirror. ‘But . . . dinner . . .’

  ‘I’m not going down. I have no appetite.’

  ‘But – but I cannot have dinner alone with Mr Livingstone! What would people say? We are barely acquainted!’

  Irritated, Elsie rose to her feet and went to find a nightgown herself. Had Sarah really been a lady’s companion? She should know better than to stand and argue with her mistress. ‘Nonsense. You must have spoken to Jolyon at the wedding.’

  ‘I was not at your wedding. Mrs Crabbly was taken ill. Do you not remember?’

  ‘Oh.’ Elsie took a moment to pull a nightgown from a trunk and arrange her face before she turned. ‘Of course not. You will have to forgive me. That day . . .’ She looked down at the white cotton in her hands. ‘It all passed in such a happy blur.’

  Honiton lace, orange blossom. She had never thought to be a bride. One put aside such fancies after the age of twenty-five. For Elsie, the prospect had seemed even less likely. She despaired of finding someone she could trust, but Rupert had been different. He carried something in the air around him, an aura innately good.

  ‘I understand,’ said Sarah. ‘Now come here. Let us see about that dress.’

  Elsie would rather have changed by herself, but there was no choice. She could hardly tell Rupert’s cousin that she owned a buttonhook – only whores were meant to use them.

  Sarah worked deftly, her fingers moving over Elsie’s shoulders and down her waist like the lightest taps of rain. The gown fell whispering into her hands. ‘Such fine material. I do hope the mud will wash out.’

  ‘Perhaps you can take it downstairs for me. There must be a scullery maid who will put it in the copper without telling for a crown.’

  Sarah nodded. She folded the gown and hugged it to her chest. ‘And . . . the rest?’ She shot a coy look at the cage of petticoats, spring steel and hoops holding Elsie in. ‘You will be able to manage—?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Self-conscious, she put her hands to the tapes securing her crinoline. ‘I didn’t always have a maid, you know.’

  It was Sarah’s silence and stillness that made Elsie’s flesh creep. Her eyes fixed on Elsie’s waist and expanded, darker and strangely glittering.

  ‘Sarah?’

  Sarah shook herself. ‘Yes. Very well. I’ll be on my way.’

  Elsie looked down at her body, confused. What had made Sarah stare? With a painful jolt, she realised: her hands. She had taken her gloves off to wash her face and revealed her hands in all their chapped ugliness. Work-hardened hands, factory hands. Not a lady’s hands.

  But before Elsie could say anything in her defence, Sarah opened the door and walked out.

  ST JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL

  It appeared overnight. No sooner did she lift her head from the pillow and wipe her gritty eyes than she saw it. Alien. Wrong.

  She stumbled out of bed, her feet slapping against the cold floor. It hung before her. She narrowed her eyes. It hurt to look, too bright, but she dare not remove her gaze. Yellow. Brown. Swirling lines and shapes.

  It had arrived without her knowing. If she looked away, would it move again? Though it was mute it seemed to scream, to crash inside her head.

  She could not go back to bed; she had to hold it at bay. Daylight trickled through the high windows, stark and limewashed like the walls. Its beams crept across the floor, then past her. At last the door clicked open.

  ‘Mrs Bainbridge.’

  It was Dr Shepherd.

  Without turning, she raised a shaking hand and extended her index finger.

  ‘Oh. You have seen the painting.’ The air shifted as he arrived by her shoulder. ‘I hope it is to your liking.’

  The silence stretched.

  ‘It brightens the place, does it not? I thought that, since you are not permitted to go in the day room and the exercise yard with the other patients, you might appreciate a bit of colour.’ He transferred his weight to the other foot. ‘This is the direction our hospital is taking. We will no longer subject our patients to bleak cells. This is a refuge for recuperation. There must be cheerful, stimulating things.’

  She saw now what the artist had tried to capture: a nursery scene. A sunlit room with a mother cooing over a crib. Her dress was like a daffodil, her hair like spun gold. There were white roses in a vase, standing upon a table by the baby.

  ‘Does it . . . Does it trouble you, Mrs Bainbridge?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And why is that?’ His shoes creaked as he retrieved her slate. Although the pencil was better for writing her story, the chalk and slate made conversation easier. He placed them into her hands. ‘Tell me.’

  Again. He was chiselling away at her, piece by piece. That was his plan, she supposed. To strip out every inch of her; another confession, another memory until she was spent.

  Already they came at night: dreams which were really flashes of the past. Landscapes of blood, wood and fire. She did not want them. How far back into the squalid past must she delve before he considered her unbalanced and left her alone?

  ‘Do you not like the colour? Does it not cheer your spirit and remind you of better times?’

  She shook her head. Better times. He assumed she had those, in her past.

  ‘I am sorry to have caused you distress. Believe me, I meant only to bring pleasure.’ He sighed. ‘Will you sit down? I will arrange to have the painting removed once we are finished.’

  With her gaze trained on the floor, she stumbled back to the bed and sat down, gripping the chalk and slate as tightly as if they were weapons. As if they could defend her.

  ‘Do not take this little setback to heart,’ he said. ‘I am pleased with your progress. I read what you wrote. I see you have followed my advice and written as if the events happened to someone else.’ She could not look up at him; she was intensely aware of the painting, hanging there. Its brushstrokes, its frame. He forced a chuckle. ‘Memory is a tricky one. They’re funny, aren’t they, the details that you recall? That cow—!’

  She picked up the chalk, still clumsy. The cow is not funny.

  He bowed his head. ‘I did not mean – forgive me. It was wrong of me to laugh.’

  Yes.

  But actually, she envied him that chuckle. Envied the fact he still could laugh.

  Laughter, conversation, music – all these things felt like relics, activities her ancestors may have adopted, long ago, but carried no relevance for her.

  She looked back at the desk.

  ‘You stare so intently at the desk. What is it that upsets you?’

  Her fingers trembled as she wrote. Wood.

  ‘Wood. You dislike wood?’

  The word conjured other sounds: the whoosh of a saw, a door slamming shut.

  ‘Interesting. Most interesting. Of course, after the fire and your injury . . . Perhaps that is why?’

  She blinked at him.

  ‘Perhaps that is why you do not like wood. Because it reminds you of the fire. Be
cause it burns.’

  The fire?

  He was too quick. He was living at a rate three times the speed of her drugged, undersea world. Was that why her arms appeared so scarred, why they never let her see a looking glass? Had she been in a fire?

  ‘But of course, there could be other reasons. I have been perusing your file.’ For the first time, she noticed the papers he carried beneath his arm. He spread them on the desk: her past laid out, exposed, like a body on the slab at a mortuary. ‘You grew up, I see, in a match factory. First it was owned by your father, and upon his death it passed into trust until you and your brother came of age. I expect you saw a good deal of wood and fire in a match factory.’

  That, too? Nothing was sacred – all must be dredged up.

  Doubt bloomed in her chest and he must have sensed it, for he said, ‘I trust you understand it is not idle curiosity that prompts my investigation. Nor is it merely a desire to cure you – although I hope I shall do that, too. I am charged by the hospital and the police to write a report.’ He picked two papers up from the desk and came over to her. ‘When you first arrived, there was no question of interrogating you. Your injuries were too great.’ He showed her the first item: a newspaper clipping with an engraving. It gave a grainy impression of someone swamped in bandages, dark patches appearing where blood had seeped through the linen. ‘But now you are physically, if not mentally, recovered, it has become a matter of some importance to establish the cause of the fire.’

  He was not implying . . . That mummy in the engraving was not her? Panic seized her. The paper was dated over a year ago. All that time had passed, yet she remembered little more than a cow and the faces of painted wooden figures.

  He sat beside her on the bed. She flinched away. The heat of his body, the smell of him – it was all too real.

  ‘The remains of four bodies were found. Two of the deaths had been registered already. It is these other two we must account for.’ He pushed his spectacles up his nose. ‘There is likely to be an inquest. Given your current condition, I will probably be asked to speak on your behalf. So you see why I must push you for information. Find the truth. I want to help.’