14

BLOOD

Not long after my eleventh birthday, which passed without celebration, I was running an errand for some sprats for Mrs Stock (for her cat, to be more truthful! There’s poor folk, poorer even than us, who would eat a cat let alone a sprat!) when I saw a crowd of people gathered at the end of the Cobb. I could not resist going to see what they were gawping at. It was low tide, so maybe some fool had fallen in the ooze and couldn’t get out.

As I got closer, I could see bigwigs and their ladies pointing and pulling faces, the ladies with their lace kerchiefs over their mouths and noses. Then I saw what they found so disgusting. Hanging from the mast of one of the boats was the body of a dead horse, strung up by its hind leg. Its skin had been peeled off it so that the meat underneath shone pink in the sun. Fishermen were hacking chunks off it for bait.

The smell was vile, so for once I could understand the ladies being so fussy. I could not help but be fascinated, though, monstrous though the sight and the stench were. I had not seen a whole carcass like this before. I could see the big slabs of muscle across the beast’s haunches, shoulder and neck. Smaller strands of white stretched between the joints. I divined that these were like the strings of a puppet, allowing the animal to move by lifting hooves, bending knees. The fishermen had stripped one leg completely and it dropped to the deck in a clatter of bones and a splatter of blood.

One of the ladies went into a swoon and was just caught before her head hit the cobbles. Why she watched if she had no stomach for such things, I had no idea. Agreed, I too was observing but I was being a scientist. She was taking pleasure at the sight of a dead creature or just frightening herself with blood and gore. Either way, it was not a good reason to be there. Such things are not entertainment but there is no accounting for the strange tastes of these London folk.

I moved closer so that I could study the body more closely. I had seen from my father’s case how a body diminished when the flesh was stripped off it through illness and that should have come as no surprise. After all, the eel’s skull was much smaller than the creature itself had been when it was alive and a fish skeleton gives few clues as to how much meat it provided before it was cooked and eaten. All the Marys in my head started running around having ideas about the curiosities and how bones held together and how many bones might be in a body and how big that body might really be with the meat and guts and skin all back where they should be. I wished I had brought paper and pen with me so that I could make a scratch for Henry.

I was lost in my thoughts entirely, so I fair jumped out of my own skin when I was tapped on my shoulder.

A man stood behind me. I thought I might have seen him somewhere else but, before I could fathom out where, he announced himself to be the very Mr De Luc who had admired Henry’s sketches last summer.

‘Ah! I see you have progressed from fossicking to the study of anatomy! A macabre subject for a young lady, I must say!’

‘Firstly, I do not know what ana-whatever you said is. Secondly I do not know what “mackarb” is. Thirdly, I am not a young lady, as I am sure you are well aware. Perhaps you would care to explain?’ I might as well learn some new words while I was about it. I could put them in my letter and that would give Henry something to think about!

‘Anatomy. A-na-toh-mee. It’s the study of the structures of organisms... living creatures... and how they work. And macabre? Well, that means... I do not know the English word... maybe gruesome? Something disturbing to do with death? And you are a young lady to anybody who is a gentleman and I consider myself to be one such. Does that satisfy you?’

‘It does. I am a scientist more than anything, though.’ I said this in hushed tones, confident that none could hear me.

He raised his eyebrows at this. Why do adults always do this with me? It is most vexing!

I continued more forcefully, ‘I am a scientist so I must study all manner of things.’ Then it struck me that he might be useful again. ‘If people find a horse bone or an eel skull or a sheep’s jaw, they can tell what it was when it was alive because they have seen it alive. Do you think a person might be able to tell what a creature was even if they had never seen that creature living? In fact, if no one had seen it living?’

He pulled at his long moustache and twisted the ends into a point. ‘That should, indeed, be possible but I think you would have had to have seen a very great number of creatures to have enough of the information you would need to make what is, let us be very frank here, my dear young lady, a guess as to what the unknown creature might be or how it looked. Perhaps I might suggest that only one who had observed and rebuilt many skeletons might be able to come by such knowledge.’ He paused. ‘I must assume that you are speaking of your “curiosities”?’

‘I might be,’ I said cautiously, for I did not want him stealing my ideas, and I also wanted to think about what he had said about other skeletons. ‘Are you a scientist?’

He looked very pleased with this question. ‘I am. I pursue a science to which, I am rather proud to say, I have given a name. No, not De Luc. I call it “geology”—’

‘The study of the Earth,’ I interrupted him. ‘My friend Henry is a geologist. Well, he will be. He’s being insubordinate on a horse at the moment, but he will be a geologist when he has finished that.’

Mr De Luc seemed to think this was highly amusing and it was, especially if you had seen Henry’s funny drawing.

‘Well! My word! What a knowledgeable young lady you are! It is my honour, mademoiselle, to be reacquainted. I wish you well in your studies! You must attend a very enlightened school.’

‘Oh, I don’t go to school any more, not since my father had his accident. Besides, I only went on Sundays to learn my letters and such but there’s neither money nor time for school now. I have to make my own studies when and where I may.’

The gentleman looked gravely but kindly upon me. ‘I am sorry to hear that your father met with an accident. I trust he will make a full recovery. You are clearly a young woman of enterprise and intellect and I look forward to reading many an expert pamphlet on your discoveries!’

With that he tipped his hat and walked away down the Cobb and back towards town.

So! I am a woman of enterprise and intellect! Another story for Henry, and a most productive day indeed.

I tore myself away from the poor horse and the crowds and went to get Mrs Stock’s cat’s sprats. I saved her a penny or two as Mr Samways gave me a handful of fish he had dropped in the sawdust while arranging his wares. I washed them off under the town pump and they were like new, if a little mangled. The cat would have to put up with that, fussy creature.

When I got to Mrs Stock’s house, which was a walk of more than two miles up Red Lane, she was in her garden, sorting out the canes for her runner beans.

She stood up, smiling, as she saw me approach. ‘Mary, child! I wondered what had happened to you! You have Zebediah’s supper?’

I held up the little packet which had been leaking fishy water all the way up the path.

‘Good girl. He will thank you for it.’

I doubted that very much since Zebediah was not, as far as I knew, the first-ever talking cat.

‘So much to do and the time just flies by,’ she continued, as she gathered up her scissors and the ball of twine with which she had lashed the canes together. ‘And look at you! Growing up so fast!’

Everyone kept on so about me growing up. What benefit there was to growing up, I could not work out for the life of me. I was suffering mightily from the tightness of my clothes, I knew that.

Mrs Stock must have seen my discomfort. ‘I have been thinking for some time now that we need to get you some clothes more befitting a young lady! Now, Mary, don’t you scowl so! I know your taste! I would not dare to suggest sprigged muslins, even though I hear it is quite the latest fashion! Oh, I see you wrinkle your nose! Worry no more. I will find you some plain old workaday dress of mine in grey or brown and then you will be happy. Is that not so?’

Mrs Stock did indeed know my tastes, it seemed. I followed her inside and began to climb the stairs behind her.

She turned. ‘Mary! Not with the fish! Put it in the pantry and mind you close the door or that naughty Zebediah will help himself!’

Zebediah was a very large, very fat, ginger cat with a chewed ear and a pink nose. He was not friendly at all. I cannot see the point of keeping a beast that bites and scratches and has to be fed sprats because it is too fat and too lazy to catch a mouse or a rat. He was curled up by the range, even though it was a warm day. He opened one eye as I came into the room and then that pink nose of his twitched and he was up on his feet fast as you like and winding himself around my legs as I tried to get to the pantry, so that I was obliged to kick him several times. This bothered him not at all. But then he saw me toss the fish onto a shelf and shut the door, quick as a flash, before he had a chance to rush in himself. In an instant, he turned from the false friend to an angry foe, growled and took a swipe at my legs with his claws, drawing blood.

‘You evil fiend!’ I hissed at him, copying his ways, but he stared back at me with his great yellow eyes as if nothing had happened and returned to his spot in front of the range. ‘Spoiled brat of a cat that you are!’ I finished. He took to washing himself, sticking his hind leg out as if he were a dancer. I quite admired him for that indifference – nothing like a dog which must always be petted and praised. Maybe I was more like a cat than a dog, though I do not care for sprats or to be too hot.

‘Mary!’ Mrs Stock’s voice came from somewhere up above. ‘Mary! I have just the thing for you!’

I licked my finger, wiped the beads of blood off my leg and went upstairs to find her. I am sure Mrs Stock liked her house very well and it must be most pleasant to have a comfortable bed and a room to oneself but, oh, the fussiness of it all! Bits and bobs and china on every piece of furniture and barely an inch of wall that was not covered in portraits of families and children and cats. It made my head quite giddy, so much was there to see. I followed the sound of her voice into a big room in which stood a very large wardrobe, the work of my father, I noted with pride.

Mrs Stock held out two dresses, one in a dark green, the other in a pale grey. Both looked serviceable enough to me.

‘Try them on, Mary! I can get them altered to fit you if they are too big for I am so much fatter than you will ever be! Just as well I am not the tallest of women, though! Isn’t that lucky?’

I did not really care if they were too large. I just wanted a garment to cover me up and hide my knees to stop folk laughing at me, and something I could breathe in without fearing that all the seams might burst.

‘You will grow into a fine young woman, Mary,’ continued Mrs Stock. ‘Very strong and capable. You are no great beauty, tis true, but you’ll make some man a very fine wife, to be sure, give it three or four years.’

I growled under my breath, somewhat like Zebediah. ‘I am only eleven years old. Why must people always be talking about getting wed? Tis all I ever hear!’ I imitated their wheedling voices. ‘ “You’ll be wed soon!” “You’ll have babbies of your own! ” Well, I won’t.’

Mrs Stock patted my arm. ‘Now, now. I did not mean to upset you. You are right. You are young, yet. Tis easy to forget, Mary, for you are so old and wise beyond your years in so many ways. You’ve had a lot to bear, with your father’s accident and your mother so often ill herself and with child again. Now. Try this dress on and we’ll have no more talk of growing up. You’ve time enough for that, I daresay. Now, let’s see how you look in the green dress! Off with that old thing!’

She did not look away as I struggled to take off my dress without my shift coming off with it. Things were happening to my body. Things I did not like. Things I did not wish her or anybody to see. I put the green dress on as quickly as I could. It was big, too big, but it hid my body and it did feel nice to be in a dress that did not squeeze or scratch, for the cloth was a fine, soft worsted wool, worn from washing. It was also plenty long enough but not so long as to trip me up. It would last a long time.

‘Take a look in the mirror, Mary. See what you think.’

What did I think? That was a question! I stared at my reflection. My face looked very white and pinched. I was certainly no beauty, but what of it? I could hear and see and speak as well as anyone and Mr De Luc had called me a woman of enterprise and intellect and Henry had called me a genius so what else were a head and face for? Not an adornment, for sure. A vessel for my brain, no more, no less.

The dress hung shapelessly from my shoulders so that my anatomy (I was proud to use the word) could not be seen and only the tips of my boots were visible instead of my grazed and bruised knees.

Mrs Stock was watching me closely. I could see her in the glass as she stood behind me. She spoke very quietly, almost under her breath, as if she did not want anyone else to hear, which was strange as there was no one in the house but we two.

‘Your mother will have told you about becoming a woman, I am sure. Oh, I know, we said we’d have no more talk of growing up and I will say only this. You know, I hope, that you may always ask me anything, Mary. You do know that, don’t you? Lord knows, I have had daughters enough myself to make me quite the expert. So do not be shy.’

Whatever did she mean? She seemed to suggest there was some great secret with her confidential tones and her offer of advice. And what was there to know about being grown up but that you had to get married and have babies? I had heard little else from Mother for the last year or more. Yet something about this conversation made me uneasy and I turned my attention to the other dress, picking at the buttons to distract myself.

Mrs Stock took it from me and folded it up. ‘I think we can say that this one will be satisfactory too. I could take them both in so that they fit you a little better, but I sense that is not your wish?’

I nodded.

‘Mrs De la Beche asks after you,’ she said, at last changing the subject as she folded up my old frock. ‘Poor lady. She has had a hard life and no mistake. You are both missing young Henry, I am sure. Maybe you could visit her again? I think she would like it.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘I am very busy.’

I nearly said that I had science work to do, but science was still a dangerous word to use with those who thought it ungodly so I said no more and neither did she.

When I got home, Mother nodded her approval but Joseph laughed and said I looked like a wooden spoon poking out of a sack, a comment I found more comforting than insulting.

Father said nothing. I told him about the horse and he just said that he had seen it too. He was not interested to hear more so I did not tell him about the Swiss gentleman.

There was no mistaking it. Father was becoming unwell again. It pained me to think it and I had long been trying to put it from my mind. But the truth could be denied no longer. The past few weeks had seen him grow pale, with great purplish-black shadows under his eyes. He was getting thinner. Bones showed through his skin as they had last winter. He coughed. Sometimes he went into a fit of coughing for several minutes. These fits left him weak and seemingly wracked with pain.

I observed that Mother always watched him closely when he had these spells and I started watching too. I knew what she was looking for.

Blood.

Blood on the rag he put to his mouth. Blood on the bed where he laid his head. Blood on the rough linen shift.

We all knew what that meant.

The wasting disease. Consumption.

Death.

Some got better, it was true, but most did not. I thought back to that day I had almost stepped on Amy Martin’s grave. She had been joined by tens of others since then. Would Father soon be under the earth? Why had the Lord spared him if only to take him away again? For the baby that would be born before Christmas? For Joseph? For me? There was no sense in it.

At that moment, Father fell to coughing as if my thinking of it had made it happen. He twisted and groaned as the violence of the cough tore through his chest. He was blind to us, deaf to our concern. He writhed like an eel on a spike.

I felt my fists forming into tight balls and I thumped my own sides as hard as I could. I felt tears of fury, hot in my eyes.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the coughing stopped. Father sat on a stool, hunched over his knees, clutching his head. His breath came out in ragged gasps. After a few moments, he stood up.

‘Sorry. Must have got a bit of dust in my throat. All’s well now.’

It was a lie. I knew it was a lie. I glanced at Mother. She shook her head and carried on with her task, darning one of Father’s stockings as if nothing had happened.

‘So, Mary!’ He was animated again, like the Father of old. ‘Tell me again what it was made you want to look at that poor dead horse, eh? Are you a little ghoul, my little streak of lightning?’ And then he looked at me in my new old dress. ‘Well! Look at you in your finery! Come and give your old father a hug, there’s a good girl!’

He held me tightly and I smelled that sour smell again. I was afraid. I was angry. More angry than anything else. Did we have to go through all that turmoil all over again?

That night, I prayed as hard as I could. I prayed that Father would be spared. I offered God a deal. Spare my father and let me suffer some consequence or let him die quickly and in little pain. Anything but the turning upside down of our lives to no good purpose.

The next morning, there was blood on the front of his shirt and blood on the back of my nightgown as if I had sat on a gutted fish. It seemed that God intended for us both to die.