It was an odd existence, working as a maid in the Rooker house that summer and autumn. The room I shared with Nell was small, tucked under a gable. We had an iron bedstead and a washstand. Compared to our previous quarters, at the lodging house and at Metyard’s, it was luxury. There were no lice. We had plenty of food to eat, which Nell cooked with skill. But still there was an undercurrent. A force exhaling misery and unease. Only Billy seemed immune to it, but he was hardly ever there.
Most days Kate sat in her parlour, playing the lady, complaining of boredom. She was desperate for the Rookers to let her work in their shop. Yet that seemed to be her only vexation: my corset wasn’t bringing her to her knees. I couldn’t understand why it was so slow. Every day, I encouraged her to wear it. And every night, the hooks and laces gave way easily to my touch. It disappointed me. I’d hoped it would stick to her, like mine had done: squeezing, crushing, making her cry out with its percussive crack. But it bided its time.
One evening, shortly after we’d arrived, I let myself into her room. Part of her lingered: lily of the valley, insinuating itself into every fold of fabric; the pots of cold cream on her dressing table; a brush snagged with her dark hair. Outside, I heard a lamplighter going about his trade. I closed the door behind me.
There must be something I could do. An item in the shadowy press looming beside the window that needed re-stitching. Maybe I’d take her dresses in an inch around the waist and see if she’d really lost weight. The more items with my loathing worked in, the quicker my curse would take effect.
Cautiously, I creaked the door of the press open. Rosemary welled in my nostrils. All of the dresses looked black and grey in the twilight, a spectral parade of mourning. She never asked me to dress her in weeds for Mrs Metyard. Perhaps she didn’t dare to.
This must be her wedding gown. The palest, webbed with lace. Bone buttons at the cuffs. Did Billy unfasten them, that night?
I pushed the other dresses aside for a better look. The wedding gown appeared wrong hanging there, a bodiless bride. Lonesome, too. There’d been no bridesmaids, no one to give Kate away.
I opened a drawer. Folded stockings, row upon row. It must be nice to put them on each day and not feel a gap where your little toe should be. I ran my hand over the bundles. Heard a rustling sound.
Peering closer, I saw patterns at the bottom of the drawer. Scraps of something. Piling all the stockings into one corner, I uncovered a lining of newspaper clippings.
The light was low. I picked up the scraps and took them over to the window, to see by the streetlamp. The taste of copper spread over my tongue.
GRISLY MURDER OF SEAMSTRESS
BODY FOUND IN CELLAR
METYARD SENTENCED TO DEATH
I hadn’t read of the trial. What was there to know? I’d seen Mim’s body, inhaled its putrefaction. But Kate had kept every article.
Below the headlines, the print was too small and smudged to read. Water, perhaps tears, had dripped on it. But the illustrations loomed out at me: the trapdoor to the coal hole, Mrs Metyard in the dock. My life turned into a penny dreadful.
A click.
‘Ruth?’
I nearly jumped out of my skin. Soft light glowed from the doorway and, behind it, Kate’s face sculpted with shadows.
‘I …’ My skin flushed hot and cold by turns. ‘I was just looking for …’
She came in and closed the door behind her.
All my courage unspooled. The old fear of her returned. I remembered her with the poker that night, her eyes sparkling like jewels.
‘You found them,’ she announced stiffly.
‘They’ll rub print on your stockings.’
‘I know. I shouldn’t keep them.’ The tip of a shadow grazed her throat. It looked like a dagger against her neck.
‘Shall I throw them out? Madam?’
She hesitated. ‘No, I … no.’ Walking briskly over to me, she snatched the articles from my hand. The candle cast dark patches into her eye sockets. ‘You won’t mention this to Billy.’
Not a request.
‘Very good, madam.’
Downstairs, a door slammed. Billy called out a greeting. He was home from the shop.
I went to make my escape. But before I’d taken three steps, Kate’s words arrested me.
A pause. My chest heaved.
I couldn’t contain myself. ‘Is it the beating of the workers you’ll be missing, madam? Or the starving people to death?’
That’s me done for, I thought. Now I’ll see if she’s her mother’s daughter. I darted for the door.
‘She was my mother.’ The tears in Kate’s voice surprised me so much that I turned and stared at her. Her candle juddered beneath her breath. She did look thin, standing there, devoured by sorrow. ‘She’s my first memory. And no matter how … despicable … she became … I can’t undo that.’
‘Your mother,’ I said, leaning on the word, ‘killed mine. She threw a blind woman into debtors’ gaol and let her rot.’
She hung her head. ‘I know.’
‘Then you should take my advice and put that lot in the fire. Burn it, like she’s burning in hell now.’
‘How dare—’
A footstep on the stairs. Someone cleared their throat.
‘Excuse me, madam,’ said Nell, all innocence. A tray sat in her hands. Steam arose from a cup, so sweet that it was almost foul. ‘I’ve brought you up your cocoa.’
Come October, it was working.
When I went in to tidy the bed, Kate was already sitting in her shift on the stool before the dressing table. Reflected in the glass were triumphant collarbones, emerging beneath her skin. Her shoulder blades, like stunted wings, made themselves known through the cotton. My curse was slimming her down to skin and bone.
Billy, fully dressed, made ready to leave for the day.
‘When shall I go to the shop with you, Billy?’
‘A little while yet, love. Get some rest.’ He placed his hand gently upon her head. Her hair looked thin.
I straightened the sheets, keeping my eyes down and taking care to appear absorbed by my chore. The bedclothes retained Billy’s scent of cooked oats. There was another smell, sweaty and animal, but I chose not to focus on that.
‘All I do is rest! I’ll go mad with it.’
‘I don’t think Mammy’s working today. Why not go round and sit with her?’
I folded Kate’s nightgown. Dark strands of hair coiled inside her nightcap. There was hair on the pillow, too.
Kate gave one of her grunts. ‘I can’t. The way she looks at me …’
‘How?’
‘Suspicious. And the questions she asks. Did I know it was going on? How long? Had Mother ever hurt my boy? I can’t face her, Billy. I can’t.’
Billy sighed, removing his hand from Kate’s head and placing it on the back of his own neck. ‘This is my doing. I should have gone to the police the minute I got out of there. I should have told my parents how it was at Metyard’s. It would have spared you all this. It might have spared Miriam … ’
‘It’s not your fault. You were just a boy.’
‘I still knew it was wrong. I should have told my parents what I suffered. But I didn’t want them to think … differently. About me.’
‘I was young, too. If the police had come back then, I would have lied for her. I know I would.’
I gave Kate’s pillow a hard thump.
True, Billy did share a small portion of the blame for Mim’s death. But if he’d told someone what went on at that shop, who would have believed him? There was no evidence, before the body in the coal hole. And wasn’t it legal for a mistress to beat her apprentices? I doubt the police would have done anything.
‘I’d best be getting on. My father needs me.’
I stooped to pick up Kate’s chamber pot. Only a dark trickle swilled inside.
‘Lucky you. I wish I was needed. Tell Nell I will take my breakfast up here,’ Kate called to me. ‘She can bring it on a tray.’
Curtseying, I left the room.
Anger pushed my feet down the stairs. Did Kate really think she was suffering? Sitting about all day, ordering me and Nell around like some kind of lady. I thought of those days I’d spent after her marriage, locked in the captain’s room. God above. My corset couldn’t kill her fast enough.
I had to pass through the kitchen to reach the privy at the back of the house. Little blue dishes sat on the windowsill, each containing a square of flypaper. There were perhaps two dozen corpses stuck on their backs. One of them twitched.
Nell bent over the sink, scouring pans. Her cheeks were already flushed, hiding her freckles in a blaze of red.
‘She wants breakfast upstairs,’ I told her.
Nell rolled her eyes. ‘Of course she does.’
As I opened the door, a fly drifted up to me, spiralling around Kate’s chamber pot.
‘Bad luck,’ I laughed. ‘There isn’t much for you, Mr Fly.’
‘Isn’t there any … red in it?’
I looked over my shoulder at Nell. ‘Red? What do you mean?’
‘Well, blood.’
‘No.’
She frowned at the soapsuds. ‘Don’t you think that’s odd? We’ve been here for months. I haven’t had to wash a clout once. Have you?’
‘You don’t think …’ I didn’t finish my sentence. The unspoken words clanged around the kitchen, making me totter on the doorstep. I thought of yesterday morning, when Kate had complained of nausea.
‘It must be, mustn’t it?’ She gave the pan a particularly furious scrub. ‘I hope Billy doesn’t think I’m going to look after his baby, too. Can’t you imagine it? A puling brat with Metyard blood in its veins!’
I couldn’t answer. Leaving the door swinging open behind me, I stumbled outside on to the mud and reached the privy just before the vomit came.
A baby.
In my mind, every infant looked like Naomi, the child I’d loved and unwittingly killed.
It didn’t matter who the mother was. Billy’s baby would be a bonny thing, with his sunny face. Innocent.
I retched. The chamber pot sat on the bench, Kate’s discoloured urine on the bottom, a reproach to me. Another fly swooped in.
My corset was working. Her hair was falling out, her bones were rising up.
But was it killing Billy’s child, too?