The next entry seemed to have been written much later, and Michael saw at once that it was in an entirely different vein to the businesslike lists of costings and tradesmen’s accounts. The writing was less careful, as well, as if some strong emotion had driven the writer. And yet it was difficult to associate Maria Porringer with any strong emotion.
He glanced through the tall window behind him. It was almost dark now, but there was still enough light to read. Nell would not be much longer, and Jack Hurst was on the way with the keys.
Earlier this evening I became aware of the children grouping together in the hall, as they have done several times lately. I went quietly along to the upper landing, and, taking care to keep to the shadows, but leaning over the banister as far as I dared, I listened. It is not a very appealing picture – that of the eavesdropper – but it is necessary to know what goes on.
The Wilger boy was there, of course – even crippled and maimed, he is still at the heart of any trouble – and several of the others were with him. It is still strange not to see the Mabbley girls among the children, and there has been no news of them. It is my belief they are bound for London, where I suppose they will eventually succumb to the lure of the disgraceful trade of the streets. Like mother, like daughters, and what is in the meat comes out in the gravy.
It was exactly the scene I had overlooked a few nights ago, but this time there seemed to be more purpose to it. I heard the Wilger boy say, ‘Does everyone understand? At eleven o’clock we will meet here in the hall.’
They all nodded, then Douglas Wilger said, ‘And we wait for the Silent Minute. If we do that, we shall be safe. We can’t be caught or punished for anything done in those seconds of the Silent Minute.’
Something cold seemed to brush against my whole body, because I knew what the Silent Minute was. It’s an old country superstition I was told as a girl. I thought it had been long since forgotten and lost, but here were these children knowing it – more than knowing it; making use of it against something they were planning to do.
The Silent Minute, the very stroke of midnight when the night hands over to the day – when the world takes a step from one realm of existence into another – when there is a gap between darkness and light, and when God walks the ragged edges of that strange place, to protect the soul from all evil …
‘Remember,’ Wilger was saying, ‘in that minute we’ll be protected from all evil. Nothing can hurt us.’
I do not believe the old superstition, of course. But the children believe it. They are planning something, and whatever it is, it is something so serious they are going to wait for the Silent Minute so it will protect them from the consequences.
10.55 p.m.
I am writing this in my own room. I have left the door slightly open so as to hear if anything happens. Perhaps nothing will, and it is all no more than some childish adventure or game. If so, there will have to be a punishment, for I cannot allow the children to rampage around the house during the night. Quite aside from it being bad for them to behave in such an unruly manner, there is the prisoner to be thought of. Secrecy must be preserved.
11.05 p.m.
I was wrong to write that nothing would happen. Doors are being furtively opened, and I can hear stealthy footsteps and the faint creak of a floorboard. I think the children are creeping down the stairs to the main hall. So I shall put this journal in my pocket and go downstairs. I shall not immediately confront them, though. I shall try to find out what they are about.
2.00 a.m.
I am not sure if I will be able to properly set down what has happened tonight. But I think I must try.
The hall, when I reached it, was in darkness. There are gaslights in most of the house, and oil lamps in some places, but at this hour no lights were burning anywhere, of course.
The children were clustered together at the back of the hall, grouped around Douglas Wilger’s wheelchair. They did not see me, and by keeping to the shadows, I was able to tiptoe to the front of the hall, and step into the concealment of the deep window by the front doors. Then one of them moved slightly, and I received a real shock, because there, bold as brass, were the two Mabbley girls.
Before I could recover from the surprise, they, along with four of the others, went up the stairs, moving as lightly and as swiftly as shadows. The remaining two boys lifted Wilger from his wheelchair, and carried him between them. He cannot walk up or down stairs for himself since he was injured in the fire, so the others take it in turns to carry him, and push the chair. As they went up, he was clutching their shoulders and his eyes shone like a malevolent imp.
I waited until I heard them reach the first floor and start the ascent to the second. I shall not say fear seized me at that point, but I was aware of growing concern. The prisoner had been restless earlier, murmuring about her children again, pacing the floor so that the chains slithered coldly on the bare boards. If the children were to hear her …
I crept up the stairs after them, pausing just before reaching the second floor. There is a curve in the stair, and by dint of standing there I could look through the banister posts and watch them. Douglas Wilger was set down and left half-sitting against the wall, while the others went along the corridor to my own room. I was glad to remember I had locked it, and that the key hung on the ring, clipped to my waist.
They did not need a key, though, because they had no intention of going into the room. Three of them seized a big blanket chest standing by the wall, and dragged it across the floor, positioning it across the door of my room. Rosie and Daisy Mabbley, working together, pulled out a large court cupboard that stands a little further along, and between them they pushed this against the blanket chest.
A barricade. They thought they had barricaded me into my room, and it was only by the purest good luck they had not done so.
By now I was more than concerned, I was frightened. And minutes later I knew it did not matter whether the prisoner howled like a banshee, because it was startlingly apparent that they knew she was there. How they knew, I have no idea, for I had taken such care, but know they did, and they were bounding up the attic stair, carrying young Wilger with them, and then hammering on the door of the inner attic room to get to her. The floor was reverberating with the sounds and the force of the blows, and through it the prisoner was screaming – terrible, trapped-hare screams that shivered throughout the whole house.
Then the children themselves began to shout, loudly and angrily, as if they no longer cared about being heard. And why should they? They believed I was safely behind the barricade, and unable to get out to them.
I heard one shout, ‘You are a murderess.’
‘We know what you did,’ cried another.
‘And we know what you still want to do.’
Douglas Wilger’s voice rose above the rest. ‘We’re doing this to stop you doing to Rosie and Daisy what you did to your own children,’ he screamed. ‘We’ve all heard you, you murdering bitch. All those nights, calling to us to come to you – did you think we didn’t know what you wanted!’
‘You wanted us,’ cried Rosie Mabbley. ‘Daisy and me! You thought we were your own daughters come back from the dead. You wanted to kill us all over again.’
‘We heard you – we know how you got out of your room when she was asleep,’ shouted Daisy.
‘When she’s gin sodden,’ said another of the girls.
‘That’s when you come prowling through the house looking for us,’ cried Rosie.
This all came as an unpleasant shock, for I had no idea that the prisoner had ever done any such thing. (As for the accusation of gin, I should like it understood I only ever take a little nip last thing at night, and then as medicinal, and to sweeten the sleeping draught.)
There was one final massive blow, and the sound of wood splintering. Something fell on to the floor with a clang, and I realized they had smashed the padlock and they were in the prisoner’s room.
You will admit, you who may one day be reading this, that the only thing I could do was fetch help. I did not dare confront the children on my own – they were in the grip of something wild and savage, and they would have turned on me as greedily as they were turning on Esther Breadspear.
I crept back down the stairs, across the hall, and out through the main door. It had been locked and bolted for the night, but the keys were on the ring. I was as quiet as I could be in opening it. Once outside, I locked it again – perhaps I had some idea of making sure the children did not get out.
And now I had two choices – two people to whom I could go for help. One was Augustus Breadspear, who would certainly come out to the Hall and would most likely bring some of his household with him. But Salamander House was a fair distance – I am not a young woman and I did not think I could reach it before midnight.
What, then, of the other possibility?
I hesitated, glancing back at the house. A light flickered in the tiny attic window – the light of candles or an oil lamp, and as I looked, two small figures moved across it. It was God’s guess and the devil’s mercy as to what they intended to do to Esther Breadspear. But whatever it was, they would wait until midnight – until the twelfth chime, the Silent Minute – which meant I had perhaps half an hour.
There was really only one choice. Summoning up my energy, I set off as fast as I could towards the old carriage path. Towards Willow Bank Farm and John Hurst.
It was a terrible walk. There was very little light – thick clouds hid the moon, and there were flurries of thin, spiteful rain that whipped into my face. Twice I walked blindly into a hedge, and once I stumbled on an uneven piece of ground and almost went headlong, which is a shocking thing for a woman of my years.
As I ran through that bitter, stinging darkness, alongside the fear something ran with me – a knowledge so dreadful I hesitate to write it. But I will write it and I will write it here because it belongs to that part of the story. It was with me throughout that night.
Esther Breadspear was innocent of the murders. That is the knowledge that overshadowed everything as I ran towards Willow Bank Farm for help. She did not slaughter her two small daughters as everyone believed. She found their bodies – she heard them cry out, and when she ran to their bedroom, they were already dead. But she did not kill them. I think she tried to revive them and when she failed, her mind splintered, and she ran screaming for help through the house, her nightgown soaked in blood.
When I learned of her innocence it was too late to help her, because by that time she was not just half mad, but completely so. What the discovery of her daughters’ bodies began, the ordeal of the bungled execution completed.
I should never have known the truth if it had it not been for the gossipy tongue of the constable who came to the Hall to search for Rosie and Daisy Mabbley. He was more interested in lossicking in the kitchen and drinking tea than in making a search for the girls. I added a goodly slug of gin to his tea, I will admit, for I did not want him too alert during his search of the house. Perhaps it loosened his tongue that little bit more, because he boasted of the important arrests he had made – and of one in particular. That of a drunken vagrant, caught poaching on Sir George Buckle’s land.
‘Nasty, vicious piece of work,’ said the constable. ‘And will you believe this – he told me he was the one who had killed the two Breadspear children. Ah, I thought that would shock you.’ He slurped more of his tea in drunken triumph. ‘Perfectly true, though. Brazen as you like, he was, telling how he’d been angry at old man Breadspear for laying him off a month or so earlier and intended to have his revenge. Meant to kill Breadspear himself is my guess, but was so drunk he got into the wrong bedroom.’ He took another swig. ‘I never told anyone,’ he said, righteously. ‘The man was roaring drunk – he’d have denied the whole thing later, and I’d have been called a liar. Kind of thing that could ruin a man’s career. And Esther Breadspear’s long since gone – swung on the end of a rope, although there’s some as say her old man got her away – money talks, don’t it? – and that she was sent off to Australy. Can’t bring her back whichever it was, so I shan’t say anything.’
I had never said anything, either. The world believed Esther either hanged or deported to a penal colony, and for her to be brought back would have exposed the devil’s pact I had entered into with Augustus Breadspear, and damned us both.
But the knowledge that she was innocent clamped itself painfully around my mind that night as I struggled through the darkness to John Hurst. With it was the memory of Mr Glaister and the Home Office gentleman, on that bleak morning, talking about an Act of God intervening in the execution.
As I reached the end of the carriage path, the old church clock at St Bertelin’s sounded the half-hour chime. Thirty minutes to midnight. I redoubled my efforts, and saw, with gratitude, the gates of Willow Bank Farm ahead of me.
I had not expected to see any lights burning, but there was an oblong of amber warmth in a downstairs room. When I hammered on the door he opened it almost at once, and I all but fell across the threshold.
I will say one thing for him – profligate and reprobate he may be, but he grasped the situation almost immediately, and was reaching for his jacket and a shotgun almost before I finished speaking. Then we were going back along the lanes, along the way I had come. He rapped out a few questions as we went; I answered them as best I could, but between fear and being out of breath, I was almost incoherent. But John Hurst nodded, and in the darkness I saw his jaw set firmly and angrily. As we reached the carriage road, the nearby church clock of St Berlin’s began to chime midnight. Like a death knell ringing out in the lonely night.
Midnight. The Silent Minute.
‘We’re going to be too late,’ I said, and he shook his head, although whether in anger or in refute of my words, I could not tell.
The chimes had died away by the time we reached the Hall. John Hurst was ahead of me, running up the stone steps. He swore when he realized the doors were locked, but I was already fumbling for the keys. We lost precious seconds, but finally the door swung open and Hurst bounded across the hall and up the stairs. I followed him, going as fast as I could, but I had to pause twice to regain my breath. I was not far behind him, though.
But long before either of us reached the attic floor we heard the sounds. Terrible sounds. A gasping wet choking. And a drumming, tapping sound. I struggled the rest of the way, and finally reached the top floor.
The inner door, the door to the prisoner’s room, was open, and the heavy padlock lay on the ground. The flickering light from the candles lit by the children leapt and danced on the walls.
Esther Breadspear was hanging from a roof beam, a thick rope around her neck. The children had tried to do to her what the hangman had not managed. They had tried to hang this woman whom they believed was a killer of children. They must have wound the rope around her neck, looped it over the beam, then simply pulled on it to hoist her aloft.
And she was still alive. In those sickening, horror-filled minutes my conversation with Mr Glaister flashed back into my mind. The long drop, he had said, was used these days. Carefully calculated to bring about a quick, merciful snapping of the neck. So much kinder than the old ‘short drop’, which was little better than slow strangulation.
What was happening in the attic room was no merciful long drop. This was the old method, the ugly, protracted strangulation, with the victim struggling and writhing, gasping for air, and kicking frenziedly. Esther was fighting for air, her heels banging against the wall behind her, over and over again, as desperately as if she could kick her way back into life. One of the children had scraped back her hair, so that her face was exposed, and it was a terrible sight – suffused with crimson, the eyes bulging. Froth appeared on her lips and ran down her chin. Her shadow behind her, grossly magnified and grotesque, twisted and writhed along with her.
John Hurst pushed the children aside and reached up to the rope – there was a horrid echo of the scene I had witnessed in the execution shed.
Behind me, one of the children – a younger one – said in a scared voice, ‘We thought she’d die at once.’
‘In the Silent Minute,’ said another.
‘And so long as she died then, we couldn’t be punished for killing her,’ added Douglas.
‘Get her down,’ I said, trying to get free of the small hands that still held me. ‘For pity’s sake get her down.’ The words she is innocent hovered on my lips, but I did not say them.
‘Damn you, woman, I’m trying,’ said Hurst, and added another oath. ‘You,’ he said to one of the boys, ‘drag that table across so I can stand on it and reach her. Quickly.’
The boy, with a scared glance at me, did as he was bidden, and Hurst climbed on to the table. Precious minutes ticked past, and Esther’s struggles grew weaker.
Hurst reached up for the rope, and fought to free it from the beam. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said. ‘And the knot’s too tight round her neck … Hell and damnation.’ The fury and frustration in his voice was plain. ‘How long has she been like this?’ he said sharply.
‘Since midnight,’ said Douglas Wilger. He was trying to remain rebellious, but most of the defiance had drained away.
‘And it’s now …?’
‘A quarter past,’ I said.
‘Dear God, she’s slowly strangling to death. We’ll have to cut her down. Get a knife, someone.’
I turned to the children, who would certainly be faster than I would. ‘A good stout knife from the kitchens,’ I said. ‘A large bread knife – quick as you can.’
‘Take one of the oil lamps,’ said Hurst. ‘You’ll see your way better.’
One of the girls grabbed the nearer of the two lamps and scurried away.
With the loss of one of the lamps, the candle flames threw even more grotesque shapes across the attics. As they flickered, Esther gave a last convulsive jerk, knocking over one of the candles. A thin line of flame ran across the floor, and licked at the window. The wisp of curtain I had hung there to give the room a less cell-like appearance, flared up, lighting the attic to vivid life, but before I could get to it, Rosie Mabbley snatched the cloth from Esther’s small table, and smothered the fire with it. One of the other girls stamped the tiny flames out on the floor. There was a smell of burnt cloth, and there were scorch marks across the floor, but nothing more.
It was then that Hurst said, ‘I think it’s too late,’ and as he spoke, a wet bubbling sound came from Esther Breadspear’s throat.
‘Death rattle,’ said Hurst, half to himself. ‘But we’ll keep trying.’
The girl who had run downstairs returned then, proffering two knives, both with sharp edges.
But again valuable minutes ticked away as John Hurst sawed at the thick tough rope constricting her neck. The strands parted reluctantly, but Esther was limp and still by that time.
‘She’s gone,’ said Hurst, briefly. ‘God have mercy on her soul.’
He caught her as she fell from the cut rope, and laid her on the ground, covering her with his own coat. Only then did he turn to the children.
Most of the mutinous anger had drained away, but when Hurst said, ‘Between you, you have just committed murder. And I think at least two of you might be judged old enough to hang for it,’ a spark of rebellion flared in one or two faces.
‘We executed a murderer,’ said Douglas Wilger, and again I had to fight not to speak out. ‘And we shan’t hang,’ he said, thrusting out his lower lip stubbornly.
‘The Silent Minute won’t protect you, stupid boy!’ said Hurst. ‘It’s nothing but a superstition, fit for credulous old women!’
‘Not that. We shan’t hang because you’ll never tell anyone what happened here tonight.’
For a bad moment I thought the children were about to launch an attack on Hurst – and perhaps then turn on me – but they remained where they were.
‘You had better explain that,’ said Hurst. ‘And you can do it here, within a few feet of that woman’s body. I have no intention of shielding you from the ugliness – the brutality – of what you’ve done.’
‘Yes, you will shield us,’ said Douglas.
‘Mind your manners,’ I said at once, but Wilger was still looking at John Hurst.
‘Of course you’ll shield us,’ he said, softly.
And in that moment, seeing them both staring at one another, I saw what I should have seen at the start. Douglas Wilger was John Hurst’s son. The likeness was remarkable. Even the name was a clue – Wilger, or perhaps wilge, an old country word for willow – originally foreign, I believe. Mr Porringer had liked to know the old words for herbs and plants and suchlike, and I had learned some of them from him.
Hurst clearly knew who Douglas was. He had probably known all along, and that was behind his frequent visits to the Hall – and his help with the children’s schooling. I remembered, as well, how vehement he had been against Mr Breadspear when Douglas was burned.
But clearly Hurst had not been aware that Douglas himself knew, and equally clearly the discovery disconcerted him. Then he made the gesture of squaring his shoulders as if to bear a sudden and very heavy weight.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We both know who – and what – we are. But the immediate problem is with us in this room. Had you a plan in mind? For after the deed?’
‘We had.’
‘Also,’ I put in, for I had no mind to be kept out of any of this, ‘I should like to know about the presence of Rosie and Daisy Mabbley.’
‘It’s because of Rosie and Daisy that we did this,’ said Douglas.
‘Explain that,’ said Hurst.
‘She was after us,’ said Rosie, with a glance towards Esther’s body. ‘She wanted to kill us like she killed her own children.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ I said, sharply.
‘We looked like them, you see,’ put in Daisy. ‘We had the same kind of hair as her little girls.’
‘We used to lie in our beds and hear her,’ said Rosie.
‘You can’t have done.’ But I remembered how Esther would call incessantly for her murdered children.
‘We all heard her,’ put in another of the girls, and Douglas nodded.
‘Children, where are you? That’s what she used to whisper,’ said Rosie. ‘Children, I’ll find you in the end … So we ran away before she could catch us.’
‘In stories, children always run away from the wicked old witch who wants to eat them up,’ said the small Daisy.
‘Or the giant who wants to kill them,’ said another girl, and I sent an angry look to John Hurst, because this was what came of filling up children’s heads with fairy tales and nonsense.
‘Where did you go?’ asked Hurst.
‘To our mother’s cottage,’ said Rosie. ‘She let us hide there. She didn’t know why we ran away – we said it was because of her.’ This time the gesture was towards me. ‘We said she was unkind and she made us work hard all day. Our mother said she could believe it,’ said Rosie. ‘And she thought we were hiding until we could go to London to make our fortune.’
‘Where,’ murmured John Hurst, ‘the streets are, of course, paved with gold. Earth has not anything to show more fair.’
‘That’s what you told us,’ nodded Daisy. ‘That’s why we thought we’d go. Our mother’s going to come with us. We’re going to make our fortunes.’
‘May God pity me for what I said,’ remarked Hurst.
‘When you came looking for us, we hid in the loft of the cottage,’ said Daisy, looking at me again. ‘You never guessed, did you?’
‘No.’
‘None of us guessed anything,’ said Hurst, getting to his feet. ‘But now we have to deal with what’s happened tonight.’
Wilger said, with almost eagerness, ‘You’ll help us?’
Hurst looked at the boy who was his son for what seemed to be a very long time. Then he said, ‘You give me no alternative.’
‘And her?’ Wilger sent me another of the spiky looks. ‘We can’t risk her telling.’
John Hurst spoke slowly, as if he was considering each word. ‘I believe Mrs Porringer will not wish for a scandal,’ he said. ‘It could, after all, ruin her future. No one would employ her, of course. She might even face prison. Well, Mrs Porringer?’
I said, ‘I shall keep your secrets.’ I thought: may God forgive me for the secret about Esther I already have to keep.
It was Hurst who carried Esther Breadspear’s body down the stairs, down to the hall. The children followed, Douglas Wilger being carried, as usual. They were all silent – not exactly cowed, for any group containing young Wilger would never be that, but certainly prepared to do whatever they were told. I have to say here that John Hurst was mainly responsible for that. I do not approve of the man, but there is no denying he has an authority.
They laid Esther on the ground, near the window, still covered with Hurst’s jacket, then he and two of the boys went down the steps to those grim underground rooms – the rooms that once were cells, used for housing condemned prisoners, including Esther herself.
St Bertelin’s was chiming one o’clock when at last we heard the dull roar of the furnace.