Everything fell still.
The rope turned and creaked.
The thing hanging there wasn’t Mrs Metyard now. It wasn’t even the captain. It was just a bit of meat, ready to be picked by crows.
* * *
It was slow going to get away from the scaffold. The crowd that had piled into the square so readily took twice as long to filter out.
‘I need to sit down,’ I croaked to Nell. ‘I’m that dizzy.’
She put her arm around my waist.
Damn Mrs Metyard. Her blows still hurt, even after she was dead. Watching her choke had been good, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. The idea that she was gone from the world, beyond the reach of injury, was an insult to me.
‘It’ll be a while yet,’ said Nell, looking out over the sea of hats and viewing the startled horses that edged the sides of the square. ‘If I sit you down here you’ll be trampled. Just lean on me.’
Everyone was lazy, sated from bloodshed. They shuffled their feet. Someone kept treading on the hem of my gown.
‘Keep going, Ruth.’
Thank God for Nell. When I thought about it, she had no reason to be good to me, to help me through the streets and pay for my lodgings. Maybe at last I’d found what I always wanted: freedom and a friend.
If only I could find food and work, too.
Finally we approached the south edge of the square, where the carriages waited. Rich people were too genteel to watch a hanging from the street; they had to sit in their coaches and peer out of the window. Horse dung proved a new obstacle to negotiate, especially with my bad foot. I was looking down and concentrating, so I didn’t see why Nell suddenly stiffened.
‘What is it?’ Her hands gripped my gown so tight, I thought it might rip. ‘You’re hurting me, Nell!’
But just as her name left my lips, I heard it echoed by another voice. A voice I knew well.
‘Nell! Ruth! Over here!’
Billy sat on his wagon, about thirty yards from us, waving.
My heart felt like it had gone through a mangle.
‘Should we . . .’ I stopped, unsure how to go on.
He isn’t your friend, I tried to remind myself. That man, with the open face and the cap sat lopsided on his tousled hair, was Kate’s husband. A traitor. He kissed the hands that had beaten Mim to death. I hated him.
But of course, I didn’t. Not really. His smile still gave me that feeling of rescue, of breathing clean air. I remembered him delivering bolts of material to the trade door and saving me from the coal hole. Teaching me to make corsets.
‘We’ll go over,’ Nell decided, wariness in her eyes. ‘He might let you sit on the wagon for a bit.’
We got there just in time. My trembling legs gave out and I gripped the wagon for support.
‘Steady on, Ruth! Come here.’ His hands were at my waist so briefly, I didn’t have a chance to savour them. Within seconds I was hoisted up on the wagon, sitting by his side.
Did Kate sit there now? Had her wickedness leached into the wood? The thought kept me from relaxing, from gathering my strength.
Nell must have read my mind, for she put her hands on her hips. ‘The missus didn’t come and see her own mother off, then? Don’t tell me she hasn’t got the stomach for it?’
Billy shifted beside me. ‘No. She – she didn’t want to see it, in the end.’
‘Funny. From the way she went on at the trial, I thought she was keen as mustard to watch the old lady swing.’
‘Well,’ was all Billy said. His mare swapped the leg she was resting.
Chatter from the passers-by tumbled into the pause. I didn’t feel better sitting there, only more agitated. Stuck between my wronged friend and the man who, God help me, I still nurtured a tenderness for. The atmosphere was too dense to bear.
‘I’m all right now,’ I lied, trying to clamber down. ‘Best be getting on. I need to find my ma today.’
Billy put out his warm hand. ‘Whoa! Rest a bit longer, won’t you? I can drive you wherever you need to go.’
‘I don’t know where I need to go,’ I admitted. ‘And nor does Nell. We’ve nowhere.’
It occurred to me for the first time how shabby Nell appeared, after all those nights in the lodging house. Her bonnet was wilting like cabbage leaves. I must look even worse. We had nowhere to wash, nothing to change into. We stank. My cheeks glowed as I thought how Billy must view us; the contrast between us slatterns and his wife.
‘You can’t find work,’ Billy guessed. He peered down at the reins in his hand. ‘I should have expected that. It’s been the same with Kate, we’ve had to keep her from serving in my father’s shop. Just until it all . . . dies down a bit.’
‘Well ask her to write us a character, won’t you?’ Nell’s hands dropped off her hips. ‘I’ve no references to show employers. At least a letter from Kate would have a different surname on it now. It might help us.’
Billy thought for a moment. ‘I can do better than that, Nelly. I’ll employ you.’
‘What?’ she scoffed.
‘We’ve got our own place now, across from my parents. We’ll need some maids.’
The wind picked up and stirred the horse’s mane. Nell and I exchanged bewildered looks. Was he serious?
Something sifted through me. What might it be, to see his face every day? To have a cheerful and kindly master? But no. I’d also have to see Kate. Do her bidding. She’d already put me in the coal hole and made me mutilate Mim. What would she ask of me next?
‘You know better than anyone what I’ve suffered at that woman’s hands.’ Nell’s cheeks flushed, angry. ‘And do you really ask me, Bill, to put myself under her charge again?’
‘My charge. Just for a while. Until you can find something else.’ He wet his mouth. ‘We go back a long way, Nell. You know I’d never let her hurt you in my house.’
Nell bit her lip.
‘I still need to find my ma,’ I said, sensing her weakening. ‘I can’t think of employment until I’ve found her.’
‘Why not?’ asked Billy. ‘I’d give you an afternoon off every week; you could go looking then. And it might be easier to get information out of folk if you’ve coin in your pocket.’
He was right about that. But still . . . could I endure it? Living with Kate? Watching them as man and wife? There was no guarantee I’d even be safe. If Mrs William Rooker took it into her head to kill me, like she killed Mim, would her husband be able to stop her?
I darted a glance at him, saw the concern in his blue eyes. My heart squeezed. It wanted to trust him.
‘What about Ivy and Daisy?’ asked Nell, still sour. ‘Employed them too, have you? It’ll be a regular reunion at the old Rooker house.’
‘Ah, you haven’t heard?’ Billy offered his winning smile. ‘Daisy took up with one of the coppers. Got him eating out of the palm of her hand, she has. Even secured Ivy a place, working in his brother’s pub.’
That, at least, was enough to make us all laugh. The idea of sniffy Ivy, pulling pints for the working man, was almost as good as watching Mrs Metyard hang.
I must have chuckled too hard, for my back complained and I winced.
‘Look at you,’ said Billy softly. ‘Just out of the hospital. Sure, you aren’t fit to tramp about. Come back with me, both of you. Have something to eat.’
Morals, self-respect – these things are all very fine. But when you’re cold and hungry, it’s astonishing how quick you can be tempted to exchange them. Clouds drifted over the sun, lowering the temperature. The clock in the square chimed four. We hadn’t eaten all day. The thought of returning to that fetid lodging house was worse than prison.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have laughed at Ivy. At least she was warm and fed.
‘Don’t you think you’d better ask your wife, before you invite us to your home?’ Nell pr
essed on the word, like a bruise.
‘I told you, I’m master of the house. And I think she’ll be glad to see you.’ Billy turned his face to me. The dimple showed through the stubble on his chin. ‘She talks of you, Ruth, and your talent. That grand corset you made her! She’s worn it every day.’
Heat crept up from my stomach. How did I forget? Peacock blue, the bone corset: my deadliest creation.
Mrs Metyard’s pain had been all too brief. But Kate . . . I could relish her suffering. Let it brew as I remembered that night I’d crept upstairs, and seen her hurting Mim. She’d pay for it. Oh, how she would pay.
‘Has she really worn it?’
‘Aye. It’s her favourite. Come on, climb up, Nelly. You needn’t stay at my house if you change your mind.’
I looked to Nell. ‘What do you think?’
She shrugged. A quick, irritable motion. ‘Go on, then. Just for a cup of tea.’
* * *
Billy’s house perched close to the muddy banks of the river; a plain, two-storey terrace of grey brick, across the water from my old home in Ford Street. Drapes hung in the windows and the step was swept clean. Little surprise, with Kate as the mistress. I remembered how spotless she’d kept the workroom and flinched. Could I imagine myself as a maid under her supervision?
The wind was keen, near the water. Billy’s piebald mare threw her head up and snorted. On the slick incline to the river, children scavenged in the dirt while boatmen repaired their nets. Circling above were gulls, calling in a forlorn tune.
‘Here we are,’ said Billy. ‘Climb down. I’ll take you in, then I’d better go and see madam here to her stable.’
Shoulder to shoulder for comfort, Nell and I followed him inside.
It was a modest home, but after the hospital and the lodging house, it looked like a palace. The chambers smelt of cocoa and warm oats. Our stomachs growled in unison. This house was bigger than my old home over the river; Kate and Billy had a bedroom each, a kitchen with a larder, two parlours and a housemaid’s closet. Not that I saw all this, that day. Instead we trailed Billy into the parlour at the front of the house, where Kate and her mother-in-law sat on a worn, tapestry sofa, clutching at each other’s hands.
‘There, now,’ Mrs Rooker sang, as if Billy’s entrance were the answer to a question Kate had asked.
Beneath my lowered eyelids, I sneaked a glance at Kate. It felt odd seeing her again, like a waking nightmare. But I had to be brave and look. I had to see if my curse had worked.
Was she any thinner? It was hard to tell. Beside old Mrs Rooker, anyone would resemble a waif. Her shoulders were hunched, and she wore the black and white humbug dress, which sucked the colour from her skin. As she swallowed, I saw the tendons of her throat. Well, perhaps she’d lost a little weight, but it might just be the strain of the trial.
‘Is it done?’
Billy folded his hands in front of him, lowered his chin to his chest.
‘Good,’ she said, though her voice wobbled.
‘And who are these you’re bringing in, Bill?’ cried Mrs Rooker. ‘Hadn’t you better leave your friends for today?’
‘No, Mammy, Kate asked me to find them.’ He took off his hat and came into the room, revealing the pair of us cringing behind him. ‘This is Nell and this is Ruth.’
We looked at each other, rather than Mrs Rooker. Kate asked him to find us? When was he planning on telling us that? Misgiving wallowed in my stomach. Kate could have no good purpose for us.
Kate scrubbed at her eyes. ‘Yes, of course. It’s good to see you, girls.’
We couldn’t return the compliment.
‘Bill said there’d be tea,’ replied Nell, sullen.
‘Yes, please go and . . . help yourselves.’ Kate waved a hand at us. At least this was a gesture we were used to, from her.
Awkwardly, we followed Billy to the kitchen. It was warmer and brighter than the one at Metyard’s, but it carried the stink of pond water. A dozen dead flies lay mummifying on the windowsill.
‘Bit of a fly infestation,’ Billy said, noticing my gaze. ‘Being close to the water and all.’
If he knew the state of the room we were sleeping in, he’d feel no need to apologise.
‘Perhaps you could see to it, Nell, if you worked here? You could get some flypapers from the grocer round the corner.’ He opened a cupboard and unlocked a small box with tea leaves inside. ‘I was thinking the kitchen might be your domain. You’re handy with cooking and such.’
The whole scene felt mad, like one of my drugged dreams in the hospital. Were we really contemplating entering into voluntary employment for Kate?
Nell watched Billy’s preparations closely. ‘Here was me, thinking we might get treated to your famous cocoa.’
Billy laughed, hoisting a pan of water above the fire. It didn’t sound like his usual laugh; it was taut. ‘Did you, now? This is the only time you’ll have me serving you, Nelly. If I’m paying you a wage, you’ll be making tea for me.’
‘Nobody said I was going to work for you. I’m still thinking about it.’
I felt out of place, beside the two of them. As the water began to boil, the atmosphere between Billy and Nell seemed to congest. I imagined them as children together at the Oakgate Foundling Hospital. Arriving at Metyard’s, hand in hand like brother and sister. No wonder Nell was on edge. How must it feel first to see your playmate fall to a woman you despise, then have him offer to rule as master over you?
‘What would you want me to do, then?’ I asked. ‘Polish your silver?’
This time his smile was its old, easy self. ‘None of that to be had, Ruth! I thought you’d be Kate’s maid.’
I baulked. He had to be jesting. I’d give much to sleep somewhere clean and dry again, but that price was too high.
‘Seeing as you’re so good at mending and sewing and all.’ Billy chattered happily to himself as he stirred the tea. My stomach went round and round with the spoon, the same whirring motion. ‘You’d be the perfect lady’s maid, wouldn’t you? After you’ve found your mam, of course.’
He turned to us and pressed the warm mugs into our hands. Nell peered into hers, frowning.
The tea looked perfect to me. My throat was parched dry. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to refuse his offer. My body was betraying me. Picturing a life where it could drink tea and eat good food every day.
‘Thank you,’ I said, ashamed at how grateful I was.
‘Well then.’ He dusted his hands together. ‘Better see to that horse. I imagine Kate will speak with you when she’s had time to . . .’ He tailed off. Grieve wasn’t the right word to use. But then what was? What did Kate feel after the grisly events of that day? Clearly Billy didn’t know either: he left the sentence unfinished.
The kitchen felt empty and stale after he’d gone. I watched the steam rise from my mug. A trapped fly butted against the window.
‘So,’ said Nell. ‘Miss Kate’s maid. That would be a lark.’
I took a big mouthful of tea. It was the best thing I ever tasted. That made it all the harder to laugh, to scorn Billy’s idea. ‘Can you imagine it? I’d stick pins in her dresses. And you’d probably spit in her dinner.’
Nell smiled weakly. ‘Still . . . it’s an offer.’
I shifted my weight from my bad leg. The tea, Nell’s words and Billy’s smile: all of them seemed to be drawing me in like a snare. But I couldn’t go back to Kate. Not after all that had happened. Could I? ‘Maybe we should go and be maids somewhere else,’ I bleated. ‘You said the dress shops wouldn’t employ you, but we haven’t tried households.’
She looked doubtfully at her hands, clenched around the mug. There were strips of torn skin. Dirt, soaked in deep, and black crescents under the broken fingernails. They weren’t the hands of a person you’d want to let inside your house, let alone work with your linen. ‘We haven
’t any experience of being maids. They expect that.’
Another door slammed in my face. Getting out of Metyard’s hadn’t set me free, I realised. I was simply caught in a new trap, and this one was called poverty. Not the genteel poverty I’d ploughed through living with Ma and Pa. Real desperation.
‘I just don’t think . . . I’m not sure I could do it,’ I admitted. ‘Dressing her, combing her poxy hair.’
Nell caught my eye. Her face seemed to crumple like crape. ‘No, me neither. I wish I could. But . . . I don’t know what else to do.’
A cold shiver ran over me as I imagined Nell opening her legs for another man. I couldn’t ask her to do that. And I certainly couldn’t make a good living that way myself. All my life, people had told me I was ugly. I wouldn’t take half as much in a night as Nell would.
‘Let’s tell Billy we need time to consider it,’ I said. ‘Then the option is open to us, if we grow desperate.’
Nell nodded. Trying to be brave.
I wasn’t sure we could grow more desperate.
43
Ruth
We didn’t hold out for very long.
One housekeeper said there was a vacancy in her scullery, cleaning the plates, cooking pans and chamber pots. She got us in, sat us down and said she would fetch her mistress so they could interrogate us together. Well. She clearly knew her mistress. The young lady came tearing down the steps to the kitchen, eyes agog, crying, ‘Are you really them?’
She didn’t want to know if we could scrub, or who would vouch for our honesty. Her questions were more tasteless. Tell me about a time she beat you. Did she ever . . . interfere with you? Did you know the Negro girl well? Did you not smell her body, under the house?
At least Mrs Metyard had madness as an excuse for her depravity. This lady was just downright heartless.
‘We’re not here to talk about that,’ I answered testily. ‘We want a place.’
But the lady would only employ us under one condition: that we would come upstairs whenever we were summoned and talk to her guests about Metyard’s. Tell them every gory detail. In short, cheapen our lives, cheapen Mim’s memory, so the gentry could get their thrills.
The Poison Thread Page 27
