The Poison Thread

by Laura Purcell

  I was obliged to avert my eyes and watch Tilda’s needles. ‘Wives do die, more frequently than spinsters. It is an occupational hazard.’

  Tilda lost another stitch.

  Comprehension dawned and, with it, a blush. ‘Yes. Of course. I didn’t consider that,’ David mumbled. ‘But who knows if God would even bless us with children?’

  ‘We must be prepared. I must save against such an outcome to ensure you and any family would be provided for. It is because I lost my own poor mother that I worry so. You do understand?’

  He nodded, slowly. What a perfectly shaped head his is, beneath the stovepipe police-hat! Everything in proportion: the subjective and the objective. You do not come across a specimen like that every day. Especially not combined with a handsome face and an open heart. I cannot afford to lose him. I will never see his like again.

  ‘I understand, but . . .’ He heaved a sigh. ‘It is difficult to wait so long. To keep putting off my mother, when she says I should walk out with a friend’s daughter. Sometimes I fear you are playing with me, Dotty. Dangling me.’

  This cut me.

  What a small modicum of patience the male sex possess! Soldiers and sailors have required their womenfolk to wait eternities for them, yet when the shoe is on the other foot, they chafe.

  ‘I worry, too,’ I replied with a tremor in my voice. ‘I worry that you will grow weary. That it will prove too complicated in the end, to marry a lady of my station, and you will make another selection.’

  He did not deny the possibility, but pressed my hand, briefly, before pushing away from the window. ‘I must be getting back.’ Damp air rushed inside – already the carriage felt colder. ‘People will notice me standing here.’

  ‘I will call upon you soon,’ I promised.

  He touched his hat to me, nodded at Tilda. ‘Soon,’ he repeated.

  Then he was gone.

  * * *

  I have locked myself in my room under the pretence of writing letters. Papa would not approve of my reading material. Certainly, it is a frightful perusal. After the horrid detail of the coroner’s report, I have been forced to lie down and recover.

  The victim – the sole victim, as far as the police are concerned – was a young woman whom Ruth had known for years. A pretty thing, married, not yet a mother. The body was in a dreadfully emaciated state, yet the insides were undamaged, as if supernaturally preserved.

  Ruth held a trusted position in the household, I have learnt, even nursing the dying woman in her illness, all the while nursing a secret in her bosom, a black serpent twisting around her vital organs. Servants do kill their masters, of course. I see it often in the newspaper and eye Tilda askance for the next few days. But this . . . It seems so calculated. Day after day, the consistency of intent, to murder by hairsbreadths. Somehow it would have been more comforting if Ruth had simply stabbed her mistress through the heart.

  What troubles me most, I admit, is the memory of Mama wasting away slowly, though from quite another cause. I recognise the descriptions of thinning hair, downy fuzz on the body. A cruel death. And to think someone might have brought it about on purpose . . . A mere child!

  Why?

  I would like to console myself with the idea that Ruth is innocent – that her mistress suffered from a disease similar to my mother’s. But there is her own confession, copied out before me. Her words at the prison. The very air around her, prickling with something dark.

  My canary, Wilkie, begins to chirp. I prop myself up on one elbow and watch him flutter. His cage is far prettier than Ruth Butterham’s.

  What will she be doing now? Brooding? Her deadly fingers worrying at the oakum?

  I wonder if a girl like that can really be saved. God says yes. Even my mother, who died in a similar way to her victim, would have said yes. It is my duty to try and lead Ruth to repentance. And more than that: I have a phrenological theory of my own she can assist with.

  Ever since the pamphlets began to be mass-produced and the middle classes took to studying the crania, the moralists have become ticklish. They think our discoveries take away the notion of personal responsibility. For instance, if a person is born with protrusions all through the Torrid Zone, are they not a villain from the cradle? How can we then be justified in punishing them for something they cannot help?

  But I wish to plait my faith together with this science. I believe the infant skull grows to reflect the soul as it forms, shaped by every decision. If we can detect vice in a timely manner and point the child down another path, the shape of the head, as well as the texture of the spirit, may change.

  Should I be able to reform Ruth and prove this, my mind would rest much easier. I could even write to Mr Combe at the Edinburgh Phrenological Society with my findings. Imagine Papa’s face then, seeing the studies he has derided endorsed by a learned man!

  I recall the incredulous murmur Ruth made when I told her I did not visit the prison for my own amusement. She was right to doubt me. My motives are not entirely selfless.

  ‘Well,’ I say to Wilkie. ‘If I should find a sort of fascination in the lives of these people, if I should derive excitement from rubbing shoulders with depravity, where is the harm in that? It is no less beneficial to them.’

  He watches me, his eyes shiny like wet pebbles, and begins to sing.

  Lifting myself from the bed, I go to my dressing table and tidy my hair. ‘I shall continue visiting Ruth Butterham,’ I tell the girl in the mirror. I might find Ruth distasteful, and the memories of Mama’s death hard to bear, but there is fruit to be reaped. I can bring her to salvation, and she can . . . give me her skull.

  ‘Do not look at me like that,’ I scold Wilkie’s hopping reflection as I fasten the combs above my ears. ‘If I can prove this theory, think how many lives would be saved!’

  The gong sounds for dinner. A deep tremble runs through the house. I sit for a moment, feeling the vibrations beneath my skin. Wilkie scuttles to the sandpaper at the bottom of his cage, his feathers puffed out.

  He is afraid.

  4

  Ruth

  I didn’t talk to Ma about school after that. She was already weary, crumpled like an old bedsheet. I didn’t want her to rip. So I hid my torn dress and broken corset, and never told her about the bruises. I trotted off every morning in my battered bonnet and slunk home in the evening, choking on my sense of grievance. When I came in, she looked up, misty-eyed from her work, and asked how my day had been.

  I lied.

  I only told the truth to the gloves.

  I liked to work on the gloves. To feel the cool silk in my hands; to jab a needle through resistant threads.

  But one evening, a few weeks later, when we were sewing in the dusk, Ma took them gently from my lap. Even without the sunlight to shine on it, the silver thread gleamed like tears. ‘These are a work of art, Ruth. Tie off that thread, and I will take them along to Mrs Metyard’s when I go tomorrow. The bride will call for them soon.’

  I yearned to snatch them back. Only the delicate nature of the material stopped me. They were mine. My work, my labour. I hated the idea of another woman touching them. ‘They’re not ready yet.’

  ‘Yes they are, they’re perfect.’ There was a warmth, a pride in her voice I had never heard before. ‘I cannot wait to see the look on Mrs Metyard’s face when I show them to her. She should give me an extra shilling, in fairness, for work like that.’

  I’d never set eyes on Mrs Metyard, but I imagined a showy, middle-aged woman with a squint. How I yearned to fling the money back in her face. Take the gloves, use them to conceal my own calloused fingers and broken nails. Become someone else.

  But as Ma laid the gloves back on my lap, I saw how hopeless it was. A girl like me, in her mended and stained gowns, could never wear gloves of this quality. It was as Rosalind Oldacre said: I wasn’t a lady. To them, I would always be little m
ore than a beast. I could never have what I wanted.

  Ma perched on the edge of the comfortable chair, hands clasped. Lines of worry pleated her forehead. ‘You have . . . enjoyed working on the gloves?’ she asked tentatively.

  I gathered them closer to me. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you would not object to helping me with more embroidery?’

  Could there be another project as beautiful? I closed my eyes, dreamt of heavy felted wool, shimmering taffeta, a rainbow spread of cotton. A girl could lose herself in colours like that. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good. Because I thought perhaps you might learn the work alongside me. As a kind of apprentice. Only there would be some . . . changes.’ Her voice caught, like a knotted thread. ‘You would have to stop attending school, for instance.’

  My eyes flew open. The room looked very cold, very black after my visions of sumptuous fabric. ‘Why?’

  ‘To focus on the task, to . . .’ she began, but even Ma couldn’t brazen this through. Exhaling, she raised a hand to her forehead. ‘If I am honest, it is because we need you to earn a wage. Full time. We cannot afford to keep paying out for school. I’m so sorry, Ruth. I wanted you to have opportunities, to be able to pick your path in life. But if you sit and sew with me during the days, I can teach you what I learnt when I was your age. I did French, you know, and some history. I will not let you grow up ignorant.’

  I ought to be relieved to leave school and the teasing girls behind. I was. But it was all so sudden. ‘Why did you send me to school in the first place, if you knew you couldn’t pay for it?’

  ‘I thought we could, but . . .’

  ‘Something has changed.’

  Dark as it was, she refused to meet my gaze. ‘Yes. It’s a thing I never expected to happen, not after so long.’

  ‘What?’ I demanded.

  ‘It’s a baby, Ruth. I’m going to have another baby.’

  * * *

  A baby. Wasn’t that just my luck? A snivelling, shrieking baby to torment my leisure hours. Not that I had those, over the next few months. Every waking minute was spent sewing items of tiny clothing. I never thought I would miss school, but I did. Far from being a release, my needlework was now a horror. I resented that baby to its backbone before it was even born.

  Sewing for the baby wasn’t like the Metyard work; there was no creativity to it. Whatever I made, no matter how fine, I knew it would be drooled and urinated on.

  I learnt, during those long and weary hours, that I could slip a needle under the skin on the pad of my thumb without making it bleed. It was like a roasting jack with my thumb as the pig. You couldn’t see where I ended and the needle began. Ma said it was a disgusting trick and it made her go dizzy. But I kept doing it.

  My thirteenth birthday came and went with the multicoloured rain of Bonfire Night. Pa bought me a firework and set it off because I loved the smell of their smoke. It was the only bright patch on my horizon. Afterwards, the weather cycled through various shades of gloom. I sat in the window like Ma, my back stiff, watching the same leaves blown up and down the street like old rags.

  Sometimes, below the howl of the wind, I thought I heard another noise. A laboured creak. It woke me at night, nagged at me throughout the day. Neither Ma nor Pa mentioned it. But when I closed my eyes and listened close, I knew I recognised the sound. It was the groan my corset had made when Rosalind Oldacre’s feet snapped its bones.

  Ma might take me out of school and distract me with chores, but I hadn’t forgotten.

  I would never forget.

  * * *

  One day, I was working on a blanket for the baby, alone downstairs, when Ma lurched into the house with a box and a parcel wrapped in brown paper. I thought expectant mothers were supposed to bloom but she was puffy and bloated, more of a frog than a flower.

  ‘Phew! The material seems to get heavier each time.’ She let me take the box and put it by the window while she watched, stretching out her back. Beads of rain stood on her cape. ‘Thank you, Ruth.’

  I bent and opened up the lid. A coarse and itchy perfume rose to meet me. Piles of hard-wearing cambric and buckram for lining garments – no wonder the box was heavy.

  Ma discarded her bonnet and half-fell into the comfortable chair, her head lolling against the antimacassar.

  What was this wretched baby: a leech, a parasite? Sewing long hours had drained Ma’s colour, but this – she looked positively cadaverous. I knelt down beside her and unlaced her boots.

  ‘Did the butcher’s boy come while I was out?’ she asked.

  ‘No. He still hasn’t been. That’s a fortnight now.’

  I was looking at her feet, but I felt her expression in the slow release of her sigh. ‘Oh. Oh dear. We must be behind on our bill.’

  ‘Then we should pay it. Didn’t you get any extra money for the gloves I embroidered?’

  ‘Oh, Ruth,’ she said sadly. ‘I should have done. It was excellent work. The bride was delighted. But you don’t know Mrs Metyard.’

  It was lucky I had to turn away to put Ma’s boots aside. She didn’t see the sudden spasm in my face, the anger I could not conceal. My gloves. Still mine, but adorning someone else.

  ‘Actually, I heard some rather strange news today about that bride. Miss Kate – that’s Mrs Metyard’s daughter – happened to be friendly with one of the Lindsay servants, so I thought I would ask if she knew how the wedding went off.’ Ma tilted her head. ‘Well, what do you think? The bride didn’t stop crying, the whole day of her marriage!’

  ‘I suppose she was so mighty happy,’ I growled.

  ‘No, that’s just it! She’d seemed very happy before, choosing her dress material and having it fitted. But on the wedding morning she looked in the glass and burst into tears. Poor thing, she kept sobbing and saying how ugly she was, how she ruined the nice clothes! Can you imagine? She wept fit to break her heart all through the service. Heaven only knows what her husband thought!’

  There was a dark glee in picturing it: a rich lady, finely dressed, feeling the same dismay that consumed me while I sat embroidering her gloves. A throb of connection through the stitches. ‘How ungrateful. Fancy whining when there are real spinsters and ugly old maids. She has no right to feel that way.’

  Ma’s cheeks sagged. She looked unlike herself – vulnerable, raw. ‘Everyone is entitled to a feeling, Ruth, even if they are not at liberty to act upon it. Perhaps she could not esteem the man she was marrying. Perhaps she had no choice in the matter.’

  I turned away and picked up my blanket again. It was essentially finished but I made a fuss of tying up the threads, knotting them like a garrotte and biting them short. I was no simpleton; I’d realised long before now that Ma only married my father to escape the match her family had arranged. But was it really the right choice? A rich wife had diamonds and satin to keep her warm when her husband’s affection cooled. Ma had nothing but drudgery. She deserved much more. It made me furious.

  ‘Careful, Ruth. Why aren’t you using your scissors?’

  ‘I’ve nearly finished anyway. I suppose you’ll want caps next.’

  ‘Well, and won’t you like that? You were complaining that the work was too plain. At least you can add some pretty detail to a cap.’

  Could I? Lace was too costly. All the trims my imagination conjured up were far beyond my reach. I could do some white-work, I supposed, but it didn’t appease my ambition.

  ‘Ma,’ I said suddenly, ‘what will we do when the baby comes?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What will we do? Will we send for a physician?’

  ‘Oh.’ She closed her eyelids and leant back in the chair. ‘No. We could never afford that. Mrs Simmons and Mrs Winter said they will come and help.’

  Mrs Simmons and Mrs Winter from church were kind women – nice enough to share a pew with. But could they deliver a child?
No one had told me about the birth process. I knew there was blood involved. Something about hot water. Our church friends seemed too dignified to take part in an operation like that.

  I unpicked the scrap of white thread hooked around the eye of my needle and let it float to the floor. Then I slotted the needle carefully back in my cloth book.

  ‘Don’t you think Pa might stretch to it? If we ask him? He sold that picture of the dog last week.’

  ‘No, no, don’t be silly.’ She still had her eyes closed. That was deliberate. Lines of tension around her temples showed she was concealing something behind the lids. ‘A second child is always easier.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid?’

  ‘No!’

  I stared at her, wishing my gaze could pierce through her eyelids. ‘Truly?’

  ‘I managed with you. I have no concerns at all.’

  The false brightness of her voice made me sick to my stomach. Mumbling an excuse, I stood and went upstairs.

  Ma’s housekeeping chatelaine lay splayed on her bed. Rust had devoured all but a few of the keys. Softly, I pushed them round the ring until I came to the one I sought: Pa’s studio.

  I liked to be in the studio alone because I wasn’t meant to be, because I wanted to see the pictures Pa called his true self. And because of the gun.

  I unlocked the drawer and eased it open, slowly revealing the barrel, with relish. Bullets, powder and ramrods lay behind. I wasn’t interested in them. I picked up the pistol itself, enjoying its cool weight in my hands. Then I propped it on my lap and studied the little hammers, the sidelocks, the silver-mounted leaves on its tortoiseshell handle. Beautiful. Not a cheap banger. A good piece; something Ma’s own father might have possessed in the old days.

  I thought Pa should sell it to help Ma with her baby. Yet when I raised the sight to my face, I understood why he didn’t. There was solace in the pistol. Solid, heavy. That odour it gave off, metallic and corrupt.