The Poison Thread

by Laura Purcell

  This hurts me. I am sure Papa does not mean it, but his deflating comments lend an undercurrent of reproach to all I do. He wishes me pinned like a butterfly: beautiful to display, firmly in my place. Without life.

  I find I cannot look up to him, as a daughter ought. He belittles my charity and reviles my religion. I do not think he is a bad person. Not deep down. Only, he does act like one more often than I am comfortable with.

  Day after day, I look for improvement in his skull. An enlargement in his organ for Philoprogenitiveness – that is, the love of children. A decrease to the areas of Excitability, Combativeness and Destructiveness. I pray that he will change.

  It has not happened this year.

  * * *

  Now the party is over, I may report on its success. On the whole I cannot complain. My gown was laced and my hair dressed in plenty of time. For the last few weeks, Tilda has been saving the ‘rats’ from my hairbrush to make false pieces. She arranged it very well, with plaits looped under my ears and extra curls cascading from the chignon at the back of my head. Once the yellow flowers were added it appeared fancy, without being absurd.

  I wish I could say as much for my guests.

  No sooner did I begin my descent of the staircase than I heard a high laugh tinkle from the drawing room. It shivered up my arms and made me wince. The Pearce woman, here already.

  She was taking a glass of punch with my father before the fire: he at one end of the mantelpiece, she at the other. A charming picture, if it were any other couple.

  Her thin eyebrows shot up at the sight of me and her smile became fixed. Putting the punch glass on the mantelpiece, she stepped forward with both hands extended.

  ‘Miss Truelove. My dear. Many happy returns to you!’

  I was forced to endure the clasp of her hands and a kiss on either cheek. A cloud of jasmine emanated from her skin and made me choke – it was as though I had bitten into a bar of soap.

  ‘Now, let me look at you. So grown up, I declare, and more handsome every day. The image of your father.’

  I scrabbled for a compliment to pay in return, but in all honesty I was hard-pushed. When Mrs Pearce first came to Oakgate, about two years ago, she was in the last stages of mourning for her late husband. She wore pale colours, as dictated by custom. Alas, since shedding all that remained of her weeds, she has evinced a penchant for hues so vivid, so loud, that they give me a headache. I can only fancy that Mr Pearce succumbed to some sort of apoplexy, induced by prolonged exposure to them.

  ‘How kind you are. And your gown, Mrs Pearce, it is so very . . . orange. Pray tell me, what shade do they call that?’

  ‘Pumpkin.’ She patted the bodice, delighted. ‘I am determined to make it quite the thing. No virtue in following fashions – one has to start them!’

  ‘Hear, hear.’ Papa raised his glass.

  I could easily have toppled her into the fire. Goodness, that sounds unkind. Perhaps I do not mean it. Only it was so very provoking, having her there in all her tawdry glory. She has never left off the hairstyles of the last decade, and as a consequence her head takes up a disproportionate amount of space. Gigantic Apollo knots, a cupid’s arrow through the middle and everything arranged à la chinoise, as they used to call it.

  How can Papa say I embarrass him in front of his friends and their daughters, when it is Mrs Pearce who is so avant-garde? But the fashion papers approve of her singularity – there is the difference.

  Just then the doorbell sounded and more guests arrived. Papa insisted he would go to greet them while we ladies had a ‘chat’. That is a vulgar phrase he has picked up from Mrs Pearce.

  ‘Miss Truelove,’ she simpered. ‘Ah! How I enjoy saying your name. So wonderfully romantic, is it not?’

  From the way she threw her head up and back, towards the centre of Self-Esteem, I knew she was picturing the day she would take my surname for her own.

  ‘Not,’ she added, dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘that I would have you put off exchanging it. There are some trades one is quite willing to make.’ She worked her fan. ‘“Lady Biggleswade”, for example . . . that rings ever so pleasantly in one’s ear.’

  For my part, I think it sounds like a character from The Pickwick Papers, but I do not suppose ‘Mrs Hodges’ is much better. Dear me. Mrs Hodges. Rather dull and frumpy. I shall have to grow accustomed to it.

  Thankfully, a flurry of company and the arrival of the musicians demanded my attention. With a brief apology, I was free from Mrs Pearce for the rest of the evening.

  Dusk began to fall and the candles were lit, making the crystal chandeliers in our ballroom sparkle. The company was predominately female: my old classmates from school and some of the richer ladies in the district Papa wishes for me to associate with. Their skirts rustled as they moved across the waxed floorboards. I spotted my particular friends, the Misses Awning, before an urn of roses, and thought that perhaps I might pass my time pleasantly after all. Both share my interests. Fanny is a keen reformer and Rose practises physiognomy, rather than phrenology; she believes more answers lie in the lineaments of the face than in the skull.

  It had been an age since last I saw them and there was much for us to discuss. However, my liberty was short-lived. Papa interrupted an interesting conversation with Fanny Awning about the penal system by touching my arm and saying, ‘Dorothea. Let me introduce you, my dear.’

  I did not need three guesses to ascertain I was about to behold Sir Thomas Biggleswade.

  Fanny and I both curtseyed, and I dared to peep up under my eyelashes. Sir Thomas was not the ludicrous figure I expected. He was dressed respectably but not foppishly in a cardinal-red coat with a brown velvet collar. The chocolate waistcoat underneath was plain, not extravagantly patterned as seems to be the current mode with young men. Unfortunately, from that angle, I could not see his head.

  ‘Sir Thomas Biggleswade, may I introduce my daughter Dorothea Truelove? I know you have been very eager to meet her. This is her old school-fellow, Frances Awning. How pleasant to see you, Frances, dear.’ Papa slid me a glance of satisfaction, as if to say look what I have found you now. ‘I think I mentioned, Dorothea, that Sir Thomas hails from Gloucestershire?’

  ‘Indeed you did.’ This was a miserable beginning to the conversation. I could think of nothing to ask the baronet about Gloucestershire. ‘And . . . what brings you to Oakgate, Sir Thomas?’

  ‘My sister. In a round-about fashion.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘She lives this way. A dashed reclusive widow. If I want to see anything like life, I have to jump on my mare and hoof it down the road.’

  It was all I could do to keep my countenance.

  Sir Thomas is one of those young men who mimic the manners of their stable boys. I need not worry about him. It is doubtful I will rouse even his interest, let alone a serious design.

  ‘Sir Thomas’s sister,’ Papa whispered, ‘is Lady Morton. Do you recall Lady Morton?’

  When he mentioned it, I did see a resemblance in the set of the delicate nose and those sloping, sleepy eyes. It astounded me. Lady Morton was a friend of my mother’s, but I had not realised she was still alive. Certainly, she has not set foot out of Heatherfield Manor in recent years.

  ‘Oh! Then I do hope you will be so good as to pass on my regards to her ladyship?’

  ‘I might,’ said Sir Thomas.

  I almost liked him. He is not, after all, ill-looking. His sandy hair is tousled in that extraordinary way you see in fashion plates from the Prince Regent’s time. At his temple, the organ for Order is small. This denotes a slapdash man who can never find what is wanted and allows his affairs to wallow in perpetual confusion. There was evidence before me: his cravat was tied but loosely and did not quite match the rest of his attire.

  Papa inclined his head, as if Sir Thomas had paid us the greatest compliment, and said, ‘I am so glad to see you acquainted at last. M
y dear Dorothea, the time for supper draws near. You must go in first, naturally, as our guest of honour. I thought Sir Thomas would be the proper person to accompany you.’

  Fanny drooped a little at my side. Poor Fanny, she would be giddy on the arm of a man only half as rich. If only I could gift her all of my unwelcome suitors.

  ‘It would be an honour, undoubtedly. Only I thought you were to lead me in to supper, Papa.’

  He laughed affectedly and patted my hand. ‘Me? No, no. A beautiful creature like you does not want a fusty old man at your side. Do go in with Sir Thomas; it would please me enormously.’

  ‘Of course. I should be delighted.’

  Sir Thomas merely bowed, but I suppose that was acquiescence enough.

  Every eye turned upon me as I took Sir Thomas’s arm. My chest felt constricted beneath the butter-coloured silk of my bodice. Mrs Pearce whispered behind her fan to Papa. Fanny shot me an envious look and Mr Dowling, who tried to court me last year, fairly grimaced. They were all imagining it, I knew: the society wedding, Sir Thomas and me arm-in-arm, walking from the church.

  He smelt of pepper and horses. Under his sleeve, the muscles were softer and less defined than David’s. For a moment I contemplated how giddily self-destructive it would feel to marry him. Painful but exhilarating, like jumping from a cliff.

  We led the company, two-by-two, through the ballroom into the dining room. I was pleased to see the housemaids had displayed all of our china to advantage on the sideboard. My careful directions for the food had reaped dividends. Although we called the meal ‘supper’, it was heartier than most dinners: jellies, pyramids of fruit, mixed nuts, pigs’ trotters and marzipan all took their place. The only oversight was Mrs Pearce’s Cabinet Pudding – it was nowhere to be found. What a terrible shame.

  ‘I see you have a pineapple,’ observed Sir Thomas. ‘Capital.’

  That proved the limit of his conversational invention. He was gallant to a degree, fetching me food and punch without needing to be prompted, but he was more of an observer than an interlocutor. Time and again, I saw his eyes drift from me to Papa. Assessing.

  Mrs Pearce, predictably, had seized the opportunity to take my father’s arm in to supper. She stuck to his side like a leech. An orange leech with ridiculous hair. Really, every time I see her I notice something new and deplorable about the shape of her head. A skull so wide, so round – it indicates a selfish propensity, not to mention animal desires . . .

  ‘So, Sir Thomas,’ I said, twirling the stem of my glass, ‘your sister Lady Morton fails to keep you entertained at Heatherfield?’

  He chuckled. ‘Rather. I’d wager there are crypts with more life in them.’

  ‘I wonder, then, that you stay with her.’

  ‘Ah! Duty. It’s a bore, but what can you do? One cannot neglect such old ties.’

  I smiled. ‘It is to your credit, I am sure, that you are attentive to your family. Tell me, is Lady Morton unwell, that she does not venture out in public? I am sure she used to visit my late mother, years ago. Has she developed a sudden misanthropic disposition?’

  Another man might have been offended. Sir Thomas merely took a sip from his drink and said, ‘Sudden? I perceive you do not have siblings, Miss Truelove. I am her brother; she has been surly to me for years. But do not fear that Georgiana has forgotten you. She has spoken to me of your mother often. I daresay she would call, were it not for the hives.’

  ‘Hives?’

  ‘Dashed terrible hives. She comes up in them, great red belters like she’s been whacked with a stick. But you did not hear that from me. You cannot imagine the wrath I would face if that gossip spread in society.’

  For all his pretend insouciance, I believe Sir Thomas Biggleswade to be a sensible sort of man. His intellectual organs are large, as is the centre for Ideality, which will dispose him to prefer the straightforward things in life.

  ‘What a misfortune for Lady Morton! Well, do not trouble yourself, Sir Thomas. I shall be the soul of discretion.’

  ‘Shall you? You disappoint me. I had set my heart on gaining a secret, for the one I have given to you.’

  I paused. His words seemed to release something dangerous into the room. Was this a flirtation, after all?

  Cutlery chinked. The air was crisp with the scent of fruit and champagne. I took a breath.

  ‘I fear you will be disappointed by the entire evening, Sir Thomas. These private balls must prove trying for a gentleman in your position.’

  Another sip of his drink and a slow smile. ‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Well, you being a baronet, and young, and unmarried. All night you are plagued with mamas pushing forward giggling, simpering daughters, praying they will take your fancy. It is no more enjoyable than being a worm on a hook.’

  He stretched his jaw. No lady has ever dared to speak to him like that, I would wager. All to the good. I have found there is nothing more certain of turning a gentleman away than an honest tongue.

  ‘Do you base this statement on your observation of me, Miss Truelove, or merely your own imagination?’

  ‘On experience. Come, you do not need me to inform you that I am an heiress.’ Mrs Pearce released her jangling laugh. The food soured in my stomach. ‘I cannot tell you how tired I am of endless suitors and full dance cards.’

  He was paying attention to me now, but it was hard to tell whether he was interested or insulted. ‘I am trying to make out,’ he said, ‘how you wish me to respond. You either mean to tell me you do not, on any account, wish to stand up with me after supper, or you are urging me to claim a dance by implying scarcity. It is easiest for me to say nothing at all.’

  ‘Then I shall do the same, and we will enjoy our silence.’

  He gave a little snort of amusement. ‘I see. I am put into their camp, am I? The endless suitors after your money?’

  ‘I should be sorry to think so.’ I glanced significantly in the direction of my father and Mrs Pearce. Her hand clutched his sleeve; the cupid’s arrow skewering her head pointed directly at him. ‘Come, I will give you a confidence in return for yours. It is this: I fear that any man who pursues me in hope of a fortune is liable to a nasty surprise.’

  ‘How so?’

  I dropped my voice to a whisper, but it was a stage whisper, clearly audible. ‘I do have some money, of course, from my dear departed mother. But it must be plain to you, as it is to me, that my father means to marry again.’

  He regarded Mrs Pearce, her head thrown back in laughter. I was glad to see a moue of distaste. ‘It does appear that way.’

  ‘If they should have a daughter, my father’s wealth would be split between us. That is the most favourable outcome. But if they should have several daughters, or a son . . .’

  ‘I see.’ He was not smiling any more.

  ‘And I pray that if you hear any young men mention my prospects tonight you might, discreetly, put them right. It would be mortifying to be suspected of subterfuge.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He leant back in his chair, thoughtful. Lines marked his brow. ‘Indeed it would.’

  Success. I had thrown him off the scent, appearing to be candid and pure of motive the entire time. You will wait a little longer, Mrs Pearce, for your romantic name.

  But Sir Thomas was not vanquished yet. ‘Forgive me, Miss Truelove, but if this is the case, surely you would be wise to accept one of the legion of beaux clamouring for your hand? A match would provide security, would it not, and pave the way to contentment for both yourself and Mr Truelove? Or have you a fancy to play the step-daughter?’ The look he threw Mrs Pearce suggested only a fool would be so disposed.

  Heat suffused my cheeks. The mere thought of ‘playing step-daughter’, as he put it, filled me with anger, and its blaze was intensified by Sir Thomas’s advice. Indeed, who was he to say I should marry? He knows nothing of me! But I coul
d blame no one save myself for these unpleasant sensations. It was indelicate of me to speak so frankly with a stranger in the first place. ‘I have no inclination to marry at present,’ I replied stiffly.

  After an awkward silence, he moved towards me again. ‘I would be sorry to end supper on this note, Miss Truelove. Wreaks havoc with the digestion. Come, let us be cheerful and speak of something else.’

  I smiled. ‘Gladly. I have just the thing. Allow me to tell you, Sir Thomas, about the shape of your head.’

  18

  Ruth

  Sewing at home, I’d been able to take breaks as I pleased, but not at Metyard’s. If I so much as shifted my legs, the twins glared: identical, baleful eyes watching me over needles that dipped in unison.

  My own eyes felt bone dry from unremitting concentration. Every stitch looked double. I began to worry that more women, innocently purchasing clothes I’d made, would find themselves going blind.

  When the clock downstairs struck eight, Kate finally sallied from the room. The other girls began to tie off their stitches. Eight was the finishing time, then. Thank God. As far as I could reckon it, we’d been working since about five or six in the morning.

  A red ring marked the top of my middle finger, where the thimble had sat. Cramp had set my hand into a claw shape. I was afraid to think what that claw might have done.

  In the bustle of packing away, I risked a few words to Mim.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  Mim opened her lips to reply, but then there was a terrible pounding on the stairs. The floorboards shook. Nell, Ivy and Daisy all turned to look in our direction.