Billy. I whispered his name to myself, savouring the way it felt in my mouth. I hadn’t met any other young men. Could it be that they were all as kind and bright as him? I doubted it. There was something different about Billy, something extraordinary, although I couldn’t decide what it was. I only knew that, in the two times I’d been in his presence, I felt more alive than I usually did.
Pressing my ear deep in the pillow, I listened to my corset. No creaking now. It slumbered.
Guilt itched at me. Did the corset know? Had it abandoned me because I’d found some friends?
Perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps, I thought, with these people at my side, I didn’t need a corset to keep me strong. I could get by alone.
Well, miss. You see how that’s turned out.
22
Dorothea
‘They have set a date, you know.’
Matron sits at her desk with Ruth’s character book spread out before her. Although it is upside down, I decipher the word improvement, written in pencil.
‘A date?’
‘It’s our turn on the assize circuit. The justice has scheduled Butterham’s trial.’
Her words produce a very odd sensation inside of me. It is as if I am tied to a rope, and Matron has suddenly jerked it backwards.
My time for analysis is running short.
‘Oh. Of course. What with Miss Butterham’s confession, I do not suppose her trial will last for long?’
‘They keep gathering witnesses for the prosecution, in case she changes her plea,’ Matron explains. ‘Or in case her lawyer suggests the death sentence should not be passed.’ Her short, pared fingernails tap on the character book. ‘I believe he might.’
‘And why should he not? Her youth speaks for her. I would be glad to see her in a penitentiary, or transported to the Antipodes, rather than dangling at the end of a noose.’
Matron presses her lips together. ‘I will not argue with you, Miss Truelove,’ she says, although her face is doing exactly that. ‘However, I will say that, in my experience, a leopard doesn’t change its spots.’
Leopards, indeed! As if she watches over untamed beasts, rather than human creatures in possession of souls.
‘I should very much like to see Miss Butterham today. Will you take me to her cell?’
Matron closes the book. ‘She’ll be washing it down about now. That is something we like to have the prisoners do, Miss Truelove, to encourage industry. May I take you to the visiting room instead?’
My stomach sinks. That will not do at all. I can hardly produce my craniometer and measure Ruth before a hall of inmates and their lawmen! Yet to forgo my experiment, after all this preparation . . .
‘No!’ I cry. ‘I mean, no thank you. You are considerate, but I am certain the cell will not be too damp for me. I prefer to see the women at home, as it were.’
Matron raises her judgemental eyebrows, but does not protest.
Never have I walked down the limewashed corridors with such a sense of anticipation. The tinkle of Matron’s keys and the crunch of sand beneath my boots make a kind of music, delightful to my ears. Sunlight streams through the porthole windows, warming my hand as it holds my carpet bag. This is the moment, I am sure, that all my study has tended towards. Ruth – strange, passionate Ruth – will confirm my theories at last.
The enamel plaque above her door now bears her name in capital letters, but no sentence yet. It is that blank space that cheers me most of all. There is still time, there is always time, to blot out our sins. The future has yet to be written.
I pull down the iron flap and place my eye to the hole.
A dishevelled shape grovels on all fours. For an irrational moment, I think of the beasts Matron mentioned: leopards and other cats with large teeth. But then I realise my folly. Of course it is only Ruth, down on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor.
‘Take care, Ruth,’ I call. ‘We are coming in.’
My voice startles her, but she appears pleased to see me and throws her brush into a bucket of water. Her face is flushed, her hair chaotic. ‘Don’t slip, miss. It’s wet.’
Matron clunks open the door and Ruth shuffles back towards her bed. I step carefully inside. The air smells acerbic: vinegar and soap.
‘I hope I shall not tread in dirt,’ I say awkwardly. Matron’s eyes are upon me, unblinking. ‘You have worked very hard.’
Ruth shrugs, as if that does not matter much – and I suppose it has not, in her life.
Her hands look sore and cracked as she wipes them on her apron. The water in her pail is brown, a few diseased bubbles floating on top.
I take a seat and place the carpet bag on the floor, beside my skirts. It makes a satisfying thump.
Matron fumbles with the keys at her belt. ‘Do call, Miss Truelove, if there is anything else.’ I cannot tell if this is a sour or foreboding tone; I rather think it might be both.
The door clangs shut and Matron’s footsteps beat a tattoo, taking her down another path.
‘Well, Ruth, and what do you think I plan to do with you today?’
‘Measure my head. Like you asked.’
‘Yes!’ Rising to my feet, I grab my carpet bag. ‘That is a great deal better than washing floors, is it not?’
‘If you say so, miss.’
Ruth’s ambivalence does not endure for long. When I show her my books and the shining craniometer, her eyes grow wide.
‘What’s that? It looks like something a surgeon would use!’
‘Oh, it is not painful!’ I laugh, opening up the arms and placing them either side of my own head. ‘It is like a calliper or a compass. Did you never use one at school?’
She gives me an odd look. ‘I don’t think I went to the same kind of school you did, miss.’
I sit Ruth upon the rickety chair and begin to position her. ‘It is easier to measure, I find, with the subject sitting. Only you must take care to hold your head straight, in line with your spine.’ Placing my hands under her jaw, I pull gently. Her back arches.
‘If you were measuring me for a corset,’ says Ruth, ‘you’d tip my head forwards now. Then you’d find the biggest knob on my spine, and start the tape there for my back length.’
‘Would I? Well, this is quite different. I use the craniometer instead of a tape measure. And I’m afraid I shall have to touch your head all over. I hope you do not object?’
Ruth shrugs again. The gesture pulls her neck forward and I am obliged to straighten it once more.
‘Excellent. Let us begin.’
As I unbutton my gloves, a stinging blush creeps to my cheeks. Why I should feel embarrassed to remove my gloves before a common criminal I cannot say, but I certainly do. Without them, my hands seem as raw and naked as peeled prawns.
‘The first organ,’ I say brightly, to cover my nerves, ‘will be Destructiveness.’
My index finger extends, hovering just beside the outer angle of her eye. Blink, blink, go the stubby lashes. I trace a line to the top of the ears and stop. There. Beneath the black, spiralling locks lie my answers.
I am holding my breath.
Gingerly, I uncurl the rest of my hand and touch Ruth’s hair. It is soft and dry; for all there is so much of it, it feels insubstantial, like cobwebs.
Destructiveness is large, as I predicted. So is Secretiveness, three-quarters of an inch above it. However, the head becomes narrower as it rises, which implies the latter quality is less prominent. The numbers on my craniometer confirm this.
Indeed, Ruth appears to have many large organs in her brain. I rather wonder her head is not bigger altogether to contain them. When I place the balls of my fingers behind her ears and run them up towards the crown, I find Combativeness swelling there. Combined with her large Approbativeness – that is, the desire to excel and be esteemed – she will greatly resent all insults.
As with most female subjects, a hollow is apparent at Self-Esteem. Yet I do not find grooves where I expected them. Her Mirthfulness, her Moral Faculties – all these are bigger than I dared to hope.
‘How long did you say you had been speaking with the chaplain, Ruth?’
‘Only saw him two or three times.’ Her voice vibrates through the skull. ‘And at Sunday service, of course.’
Can reform take place so quickly? Such a substantial reform as to reshape the crania . . . But she is a child, just sixteen years old. I must not forget this. Children grow and change with great rapidity. It may be that their skulls do the same.
‘I will move above your left eye now. This will tell me how skilled you are in your work!’
Colour, Neatness, Constructiveness: all the tools of Ruth’s trade are written in her brow. It is little wonder that she excels at sewing. But one anomaly has me reaching for my craniometer: a curve slightly below the centre of the forehead.
Ruth does not blink. She stares forward as I look, huff, look again.
Eventuality: this is the memory of facts, the recollection of circumstances and passing events. Generally the organ is larger in children than in adults, but even so Ruth’s seems particularly developed, denoting a wonderfully retentive memory.
Of all things, I least expected this. I had depended on her recollection being twisted and confused: it goes hand in hand with her torrid story. I thought her mind in trauma, fabricating tales of supernatural powers. But if she recalls all the events leading up to her crime . . .
She is lying to me. Reciting falsehood on purpose. There can be no other explanation.
‘All done.’ My voice comes rather stiff, starched by the thought of her treachery. I turn away from her deceitful eyes and begin to write up my observations. After all these visits, I still do not have her trust. Or worse: she looks upon me as a dupe. A silly spinster to make sport of with talk of magic needles. ‘You may move now, Ruth.’
‘Can I look at your books?’
‘If you like.’
Whatever untruths Ruth has been telling, her enjoyment in my books and their coloured diagrams is genuine. As my pencil scratches away, she spreads my manuals out on her skirts and flicks through the pages, exclaiming now and then. Whenever she comes across a drawing of a head split into sections, she places a hand on her own skull, wonderingly.
‘So our brain’s all sewn together, like this?’ She angles a picture in my direction. It is the side of the head, the organs divided into pleasant blocks of yellow, orange and purple. ‘Like a patchwork quilt, isn’t it, miss?’
‘That drawing is just to make the organs clear for phrenologists. I expect the brain looks rather different, inside.’
Her mouth droops a fraction. ‘Oh. That’s a shame. I thought there might be one part of us that was . . . beautiful.’
‘The soul,’ I suggest.
Her eyes remain on the book. ‘Inside, most of the body is disgusting.’
Choosing not to pursue this line of discussion, I return to my work. A dismal business! The figures are not at all what I had anticipated.
How will I trace a line of improvement, if Ruth’s moral organs are already mature? If they were to grow larger, they would be very big indeed. Yet they must grow, surely? For if this is the skull of a murderer, what does it mean for those with a smaller Conscientiousness, a smaller Contrition? They must be considered diabolical.
‘If I’d stayed at school,’ Ruth sighs, ‘they might have taught me this. I wish I’d had a book like this all my life. It would have been so easy. I could have looked at this and known at once who was good and who was evil.’
Her words make me shudder. ‘It is not as simple as that, Ruth. The whole purpose of phrenology, so far as I am concerned, is to ascertain which organs we use the most and repair any imbalance. It shows us how we need to change.’
‘Change the lumps on our skulls?’ The corner of her mouth twitches. ‘How do we do that? With mallets?’
Usually, I would laugh. But in this cell, with the bite of vinegar and Ruth’s deadly fingers upon my books, I cannot. I do not seem to have a sense of humour left.
‘Please do not be facetious. This is immensely important to me.’
She looks away.
What a relief it is to pull my gloves out of my carpet bag and button them back on! They are an armour of sorts, these little scraps of kidskin. I find I have exposed too much; laid myself open, in a dangerous place.
I wish I had never asked Ruth if I could measure her head.
I wish I had never visited her at all.
23
Ruth
It’s hard to think kind thoughts, sewing when you’re tired. Sometimes it struck me I’d be a nicer person altogether, if I could only get more sleep. But the season was in full swing and all the ladies wanted dresses ready to take up to London with them, rather than pay extortionate prices in the capital. And being ladies, they didn’t think of this until three days before their departure, and they couldn’t understand why their gowns didn’t appear overnight.
We had to make them appear. In half the time. Or else, Kate said. I didn’t really know, then, how bad the else was.
She never asked how I got out of the coal hole. In truth I think she was too busy. The shop bell tinkled all day. Kate was needed in the showroom almost constantly.
Mim and I were both tasked with making the voluminous skirts of a tartan gown. It was to have two rows of hem ruffles – a gaudy addition, given the sulphur and lavender colours in the pattern. Without Kate to watch us, we could actually talk as we sewed. I was sure that must be better for all involved. The less I thought about my exhaustion and how much I hated Ivy for getting me thrown in the coal hole, the less harm would go into my work. And God knew this tartan dress was going to be distasteful enough. The lady wearing it would need all the help she could get.
‘I was talking to Mr Rooker, the other day,’ Mim said. Her eyes remained trained on her needle and I was glad. She didn’t see my blush. ‘He asked if I had any family.’
‘He’s nice like that,’ I replied cautiously. ‘He’s got manners. Almost like a gentleman.’
‘And he can read,’ she added.
In my surprise, I made my stitch too big. Tutting, I put my needle down and unpicked it.
It had never occurred to me before that I’d enjoyed a better education than the other girls. I was sure the Oakgate Foundling Hospital taught its wards the skills they needed for employment, but perhaps reading was considered a step too far. If the girls could ply a needle and cook mutton, what else did they need?
Mim lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I always knew there was a word engraved on the fish my mother left. Just on one side, where it’s rougher. I asked Mr Rooker to read it for me. He told me it says Belle’s.’
All those nights she’d been flicking the fish over and over in her hands beside me in bed. I could have helped her to read it ages ago.
Wetting the ball of my thumb, I threaded my needle and recommenced my running stitch. ‘And what’s Belle’s?’
‘He says it’s a gambling house in London.’
‘Your ma was a long way from London, if she gave you up to the Foundling here,’ I observed neutrally. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, but I didn’t want to talk about our mothers in the sewing room. The lady wearing the tartan dress would feel my sorrow.
‘But she was coming back,’ Mim went on, excitement creeping into her voice. ‘She wouldn’t have left a token if she didn’t mean to come back for me. Now I can find her. If I can just get to London, get to Belle’s, I’ll find my ma.’
‘And then what?’
‘I don’t know.’ She held her needle suspended, gazing up at the skylight and letting her dreams unspool. ‘Maybe we’ll get on board a ship. Sail to . . . Africa. The matron in the Foundling, she used to s
ay that’s where I belong: Africa.’
Evidently the matrons in the Foundling didn’t have much education, either. ‘That’s ridiculous. You were born in England. You belong here.’
‘Oh, I know.’ Mim shook her head dismissively, more forgiving than I would have been in her situation. ‘She was always saying horrible things to me. But it got me thinking. They say the sun shines all year round in Africa. Even when it rains, it’s hot. People dress in bright clothes and they eat fruit we don’t have. It might be nice. The Africans couldn’t treat me any worse than Mrs Metyard has.’
So that was how Mim got along: she’d created a fantasy for herself, a magic land where people would be kind. I could see the attraction. But it was just a story. The real Africa – if Mim had any connection to the place – must be entirely different. Although I didn’t have the heart to take it from her.
‘You can come with us,’ Mim whispered. ‘If you like.’
I exhaled. If I ever got out of here – and who knew when that would be? – I didn’t fancy risking my life at sea. Ma would never survive six months on a ship.
‘You don’t want to take me, Mim. I’m bad luck.’
She placed a hand on my arm. ‘You’re my friend. My only friend. You haven’t been bad luck to me at all.’
Words I had wanted to hear for so long, but they didn’t bring me the joy I’d expected. Instead I felt a queasy dread. I thought of Ma, without sight, without a husband, without her baby.
‘Not yet,’ I said.
Feet clopped up the stairs. The five of us fell upon our sewing, our fingers moving faster than they had all day. The room was quiet, the perfect model of industry by the time Kate sailed in.
The colour was high in her cheeks and her mouth was open, panting a little from her swift journey up the staircase. ‘Ruth.’
Just my luck. Was I about to pay for my escape?
I raised my eyes but I didn’t stop sewing. The constant motion of my hand steadied my nerves. ‘Miss Metyard?’
‘Put down your needle. Show me your arm.’
The Poison Thread Page 16
