First, they beat her with the broomstick. The captain held her by the hair while Kate administered the blows. With every swing, her sapphire ring flashed. Mim refused to cry out.
When the hollow thwack of wood had faded away, we were sent to bed: the twins, Nell and I. My pallet felt large and achingly cold without Mim.
‘What was she thinking?’ Nell said into the darkness. ‘She must have known she’d never make it, especially in the frost.’
Daisy cleared her throat. ‘I don’t think blackamoors feel the cold. Not like we do …’ But you could tell that even her spiteful soul didn’t believe it.
Very soon, the sun would rise again. None of us pretended to sleep. We lay there, staring at the mouldy ceiling, wondering what was taking place above our heads. I listened to the house, every creak and every groan, but I didn’t hear Mim. Whether that was a good sign or not, I couldn’t decide.
In the days that followed, Nell abandoned the attic to take over the cooking and the cleaning. She was good at it. If I’d had anything but bile in my stomach I would have appreciated the stronger tea and the eggs that didn’t run. But now every moment only served as a reminder that Mim wasn’t there: not in the sewing room, not in the kitchen, not in my bed.
We were all of us stunned by the loss of her. Even Ivy and Daisy fell quiet. I missed their barbed glances, their astringent remarks. At least they’d made me feel alive.
Now I only had Rosalind’s corset to punish and I did it with relish – but upstairs, with the others, rather than down in the showroom. By the time Rosalind’s trousseau was complete, all our nails were yellow, stained from the emerald-green dyes.
‘I hate all the brides,’ Ivy flared, ‘but I hate this one most of all. Look what she’s done to me! I hope the gowns rot her skin off.’
I smiled.
I suppose it was a week after the party that Kate brought us all down to the showroom, to pack up Rosalind’s dresses in boxes and tissue paper. She’d never done such a thing before.
She was wearing her striped humbug gown and looked, in all honesty, dreadful as she stood amongst the fine silks and parasols. Her nose seemed to tilt even higher, as if she had dung stuffed up it. Grey shadows sat beneath her eyes. Her waist, always tiny, had shrunk again. I didn’t feel any pity.
‘Come on then,’ she barked. ‘Ivy folds, Daisy – tissue paper. Ruth, you put on the lids.’
‘Green tissue,’ muttered Daisy. ‘Green ribbon. What a surprise.’
Kate pinched her. ‘Get on with it.’
In fairness to Rosalind, she always had taste. The cuts were à la mode: tight sleeves, long bodices, all manner of intricate pleats and flounces. As Ivy fussed over the arrangement of a neckline, I wondered what Billy would think of the Oldacre trousseau and my serpent-green corset.
Why hadn’t he delivered to Metyard’s since the night of the party? If there was ever a time we needed him to come and rescue us, it was now. He’d lived in this house. He must have known the horror of the captain’s room.
All I could think was that Kate had written and told him not to come. But surely he must suspect something was wrong? I didn’t like the idea that he was falling under Kate’s power and doing her bidding despite his better judgement. Becoming one of them, instead of one of us.
My work continued while I thought about Billy. Pale blue boxes, olive ribbon. Last in the line, I secured the lids and tied the bows. Throttled them.
For a time there was peace: the rustle of material and tissue, the slide of my ribbon against the box. The carriage clock ticked. But then the inside door opened, and Nell’s freckled face appeared.
‘She’s not moving.’
‘What?’ Kate snapped to attention.
‘I went to fetch her chamber pot. There’s black in it and … she’s not moving.’
All hands fell still.
Something curious was happening to Kate’s face. Her skin wasn’t peaches and cream now: it was old milk.
‘I’ll make her move.’
She flew around the glass counter in a whirl of black and white stripes. Pushing past Nell, she stomped up the carpeted stairs. A door slammed above us.
‘Who, Nell?’ I demanded. ‘Who hasn’t moved?’
Her throat worked beneath her high collar. ‘Miriam.’
Of course there must have been someone going up to the living quarters day by day, to empty the pots and fetch the food. Nell. Nell had seen Mim and Mrs Metyard, on a regular basis, ever since the escape – yet she’d said nothing.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you saw her?’ I cried. ‘Why didn’t you offer to pass on a message?’
Nell shifted against the half-open door. ‘You know why.’
‘Because you’re a coward.’
Hurt in her eyes. I remembered then what she had risked to bring me the pail of water, that night I’d emerged from the coal hole. ‘Go ahead and think that, if you like. But if you were up there every day, Ruth, watching that woman strut around in men’s threads, you wouldn’t say a word either.’
‘She’s still dressed as the captain?’ Ivy asked.
‘All week. Why do you think she hasn’t been down here? She’s not fit to see the customers. She’s cracked.’
‘But what about Mim?’ I insisted. ‘What have they done to her?’
Nell blinked her pale lashes. ‘God, but it’s terrible,’ she whispered. ‘They won’t let me give her any victuals. The way she’s tied, she can’t sit, but she can hardly stand either … ’
I wanted to brain her, I wanted to shake her until her cinnamon head rattled. ‘They won’t let you? What, and you obey them? You can bear to see her like that, starved to death, and not slip her a cup of water?’
‘I can’t!’ Nell cried, slapping the door. ‘Every time I go in, she’s there – he’s there – with that bloody great sword … There’s nothing I can do.’
Behind me, Daisy rustled some tissue. Carrying on with her work, as though Mim were nothing.
I rounded on her. ‘I suppose you’re about to tell me blacks don’t need food, aren’t you? They don’t feel starvation?’
All those lustrous gowns hanging in the showroom; the white gauze spread out across the counter like gossamer: they made me sick. Could nobody see the brutality that lay beneath the stitches? Didn’t the customers realise that death lurked under every hem?
Daisy cast me a venomous glance. ‘Careful with your mouth. If Miriam kicks the bucket, the captain will be after fresh meat. I tell you now, it ain’t going to be me.’
‘Nor me,’ Ivy spat. ‘Devil take the hindermost.’
Nell rested her head against the door. At least she had the decency to look tearful.
‘There’s nothing we can do, Ruth,’ she repeated.
But of course there was.
Mrs Metyard in the regiment, Kate in the showroom, Nell all about the house. There was no one left to lock drawers. There was no one to notice if I slipped a few needles up my sleeve at the end of the day. I took three.
The sun set early, as it does in the winter. Black as the coal hole, black as Mim’s hair. We finished sewing at eleven. Kate appeared in the attic, gaunt by the light of the lace-maker’s lamp, and took us down to our chill, dank beds. I dressed in my nightgown, lay on my back.
Then I waited.
I waited a long time, staring blindly into the dark. Little by little, my eyes adjusted. Grey, fuzzy shapes showed me where the steps were and where the twins slept.
Rain tapped at the windowpane above my head. I heard it trickling down the street outside, trickling down our walls.
The air felt poised, as though it were waiting with me.
At last, I shuffled across the pallet and rose to my feet.
I wound my way carefully across the cold floor, making sure to avoid the chamber pots. The needles were tucked in my right hand, warmed by my flesh; I used my left to feel about me.
Scratches on my palm: the wooden steps. There was no banister – I would crawl up, for safety. What a notion: safety. When I was going straight into the lion’s den.
Hitching my nightgown up to my waist, I fumbled on my hands and knees, inch by inch, up the steps. The third one down was rotten – I must remember that – but I hadn’t kept count of the treads. If I should fall through—
Suddenly it was there beneath my fingers. Something creaked, ominous. Ivy snorted in her sleep.
I held myself rigid, listening. Surely she’d hear my heart, hammering in my chest?
‘She’ll kill you if she catches you.’ Nell. Quiet as a whisper.
‘I know,’ I said softly.
‘You won’t be able to free her. It’s not like the coal hole.’
‘I just want to give her some food.’
I heard her turn on her pallet. ‘I know,’ she said, echoing me. ‘I left some in the kitchen for you.’
After a few attempts, I managed to pick the lock with a long needle. Gently, I edged out into the corridor and pushed the door closed behind me.
Everything lay wrapped in velvet silence. Only faintly, in the distance, the carriage clock ticked.
I turned my head. This wasn’t the place I knew: it was a funereal version, a ghostly version. Familiar objects appeared changed. I was lost and alone in the dark.
It was scent that led me in the right direction: burnt bread and fat, reaching out to me through the night. Stumbling into the kitchen, I heard the sullen patter of the rain outside and the wind, sighing in its wake. My hip smacked, hard, into the corner of the table. I blew out my breath between clenched teeth. Something wet on my nightdress. Not blood? No – it was water. Nell had left a roll of bread and a mug of water close to the edge, where I could reach them.
Clutching the little supper took both my hands; I couldn’t even grope my way through the darkness now. The mug handle burnt cold against my fingers. Shakily, I rounded the newel post and began to totter up the carpeted stairs.
The water sloshed in its mug, lap, lap, against the clay. It was the loudest sound I ever heard.
My hand tightened around the bread, squeezing the life from it. It wouldn’t be any less wholesome for being crushed. But if I should leave crumbs on the carpet … Better not to think of that. Better not to think at all.
I’d resolved in my mind that it didn’t matter if I died, that I was willing to run any risk for the sake of Mim. Yet when I gained the top of the stairs and the floorboard creaked, my body let me down. I began to tremble. Not just tremors: fierce, uncontrollable shaking that chattered my teeth.
What was I doing there? Was I mad?
I couldn’t remember where the captain’s room was. I only remembered the whip. Did I turn left or right? Suppose he’d heard the floorboard, just then, beneath my feet? Suppose he was already waiting for me?
Biting back the tears, I flew forwards in desperation. I thought – I thought – it was to the right. Why did it all look so similar in the dark?
Water dripped on to the carpet. I was too flustered to care about that. Two doors stared back at me, blank and secretive, showing nothing of the horror that lay within. There was no time: I had to choose.
I took the one on the right.
It was unlocked. Slowly, slowly, the door swung on its hinges.
My vision flickered. The images came disjointed: bulky shapes; a fire, swooping in the grate. A length of rope hanging from the ceiling. Drooping against the wall, her hands tied, as mine had been, a figure.
‘Mim?’ I croaked.
A sigh.
It was her. I’d heard her breath a thousand times: at my side, sewing; sleeping in our bed.
Relief loosened my grip on the mug. And then something moved.
It uncurled gradually in the corner, something dark and slender. With it came a powerful scent, sickly sweet, slicing through the fug of the captain’s tobacco.
Lily of the valley.
‘Get out.’
‘Kate?’
‘Get out, do you hear me?’
I did, but only vaguely; her voice crackled in my ears. I fought to keep my feet, to stay upright. ‘What are you doing to Mim?’
Kate took a step forward and I saw her, draped in flickering orange light. Soot flitted out of the dwindling fire, into her hair. It wasn’t curled now but plaited, thick down her back. She looked like an angel fallen in flames.
‘Get out,’ she growled. ‘Or do you want me to call my mother?’
Her hand reached for the fireplace, for the poker.
God forgive me, I couldn’t hold my ground.
I dropped the roll and the water, and I ran.