I am more disturbed in my mind than I can possibly express. How could I be otherwise, with a recital such as this?
That poor girl.
Is it not odd, how print distances you from an event? You read an account in the paper and it looks just like a novel, a story that someone has invented. Dressmaker Slays Apprentice. Very well. On the next page you half-expect Knight Vanquishes Dragon.
But Miriam did live, and she also died. Horribly. I thank heaven the remains have since received a proper Christian burial!
I try to push the unpleasant images from my mind and do useful, everyday chores like changing Wilkie’s water dish and blowing the husks from his seed bowl. Yet in every action I perform, I am dreadfully aware of my hands. I see Miriam’s hand, melting in the fire. I see Ruth’s fingers, about the saw.
I wondered, did I not, just what those stained hands, picking at the tar, were capable of? The truth is an unbearable weight upon me. It is much worse because, in this instance, I find that I believe her.
Not necessarily in all particulars. I have nothing but her own assertion that Mrs Metyard was either so enamoured of or abused by her husband that she attempted to assume his likeness. This may be the imagination of an overstimulated girl. But the manner of the death, and interference with the body … This much I know is true.
Would that Ruth’s were the only macabre tale dogging my thoughts, but David is full of another story, fresh from Putney. There, a female trunk, without limbs or head, has been discovered in the stables of one Mr Daniel Good. The man himself remains at large, much to the confusion of the six police divisions intent upon catching him. This would be horror enough, yet the circumstance which perturbs me is the fervour it has sparked within David.
‘It’s exposed the weaknesses in the system, Dotty,’ he told me, eyes ignited with purpose. ‘The police of our very capital, flummoxed! It’s an embarrassment. There’s no organisation. They need more men. Good, hard-working men to put the ship in shape.’
And before I could ask him what this signified, he informed me he had already taken action. Applied to transfer, to work in London ‘where a man can make his name’.
This is my fault. I told him, did I not, that we should need to relocate in order to marry? That we required a larger income. I have forced his hand, and now I shall be obliged to leave behind my mother’s house, my friend Fanny, Ruth, perhaps even Wilkie … However, I must not fret. Not at present. It may all come to nothing. If the Metropolitan Police are truly as inept as he implies, they may make a mistake and reject him.
Am I selfish to hope that they shall? That by some miracle, I know not how, I am able to retain both the man and the house? It does not seem so very much to ask. But then poor Miriam only wanted a trip on the stagecoach and a meeting with her mother. I can see by these documents how she was served.
I take a shawl and wander with my papers into the garden. There is a little swinging seat, shaded from the sun. Bees tease at the opening buds of roses and geraniums. A dry, warm scent rises from the grass and I think I will be comfortable out here, with old Jim working at the hedges over the back. Nothing will appear terrible by the light of day.
I am wrong.
All these weeks I have wondered why the name ‘Mrs Green’ from Ruth’s story rang a bell in a distant chamber of my mind. A common enough surname; no reason it should stick with me. But of course, it was the colour I remembered, from that year – the season Fanny, Rose and I vowed never to wear emerald green again.
We discovered that they manufacture the green dyes with arsenic. Some of it is simply brushed on to garments in a liquid solution with no treatment to fix the colour. Sweat activates the mixture, leaching the hue into the skin, and if that skin should peel and blister (as well it might) the arsenic enters the bloodstream. Frightful! To expire like a poisoned rodent!
Thank God, it never happened to anyone of my acquaintance. Our dressmakers used good-quality dyes, which never hurt us.
But it happened to Rosalind Green.
She was enamoured of green: green paper hung in her bedroom and her boudoir; there was green threaded into all that she wore, just as Ruth has said. She meant it as a tribute to her husband and the great wealth he brought her. By all accounts, she was a beautiful creature, suiting the colour so perfectly.
At first there were dry spots around the eyes, nostrils and lips: just peeling skin, which she thought little of. But then there came the blisters that burst and left craters. Her fingernails rotted.
By the time the doctor arrived upon the scene, she was vomiting green waters and passing green motions. Would you believe it, it was even said the whites of the poor girl’s eyes turned green, until she wailed that everything she looked at was tinged with the colour.
Such a painful death, detailed before me. Convulsions – oh, I remember those well from my own poor mama! – but also foam. Green foam, from the mouth, nose and eyes. Almost as if …
Ruth must know of this.
She has read the papers; this is another of her ruses, designed on purpose to frighten me. Why, she herself confessed to the marks the dye had made upon her nails and her fingers! Poison, sheer science, killed this girl Rosalind. It is folly to imagine otherwise.
But why do the hairs on the back of my neck prickle so?
Rosalind Green was a sad victim of her own mania. It has often been noted that bedbugs forsake rooms papered in bright green. In addition, mould grows between such paper and the wall, releasing an unpleasant-smelling gas. Faced with a combination of poisonous paper and deadly clothes, hour after hour, day after day, it is hardly incredible that unfortunate Rosalind succumbed. A frightful death, to be sure, and one that must have pleased the bitter, vengeful Ruth. But she did not cause it.
Goodness me, this case! Whyever do I pursue it? I gain neither progress in my studies nor good works for my soul! It seems clear that the prisoner is twisted and stubborn, beyond the reach of redemption. Her head does not change shape.
I am beginning to fear that evil is unavoidable.
That I should elope with David, now, before it is too late.
A bell rings inside the house. I tuck my papers away, and by the time I am done one of our footmen is crossing the lawn, carrying a silver tray.
‘Letters for you, Miss Truelove.’
There are two. One in a cheap, slightly dog-eared envelope addressed in a hand I recognise as Matron’s. The other is lavender-coloured and scented. Bold, blotted letters.
‘Thank you,’ I say, dismissing the footman with a wave. Pain darts across my knuckles. ‘Bother!’ I have caught one of the buzzing wasps – the blasted fellow has stung me.
‘Are you well, Miss Truelove? May I fetch you something?’
‘No, no, I am quite all right.’
I busy myself with the envelopes, resolutely ignoring the swelling on my skin. It itches like a thousand needle-tips.
Matron’s letter first. News of the approaching trial, perhaps, or another murderer admitted? I rip it open, read the sparse lines.
I have to blink the sun from my eyes and read again.
I regret to inform you that New Oakgate Prison has suffered its first death. Jenny Hill expired at six of the clock this morning despite our best efforts. The doctor has been summoned, before this mystery illness can claim more lives.
I cross myself, say a prayer for her. The words are like paste in my mouth. How I have forsaken her, abandoned her, to follow my own selfish studies. Now I shall never have the chance to meet with her again. Poor woman. Did she die as lonely as she lived? She was serving time for attempted suicide. How awful that she should be saved, only to pass from the world in this manner.
I blame myself.
I blame Ruth.
It takes me a good while to shake off the tears and put aside personal considerations. Only then can I reflect upon what this will mean for the prison. Of course gaol fevers are commonplace, but we had hoped, with our attention to cleanliness and the new facilities, to avoid this sad misfortune. It seems to have found us, all the same.
At least the doctor will be able to advise us on the best course of action. It will have nothing to do with the bedsheets.
It is not Ruth.
The second letter. Yes, hopefully this will cheer me. I will read it, just to raise my spirits, and then I must dash inside to put cool water on this hand. Bless me, it itches!
The paper is hot-pressed, thick to hold. My eyes fly straight to the bottom, to the signature, seeking out the owner of this slapdash writing.
Sir Thomas Biggleswade.
The garden retreats around me.
Birds no longer call. Even the pain of the sting becomes dull, detached from me.
There is only one reason a gentleman would dare to address a young lady.
He has spoken to my father, he writes.
He is making an offer of marriage.