I awake to the sound of frightened cries. The back of my shoulder is cold so I know that Beth is not in bed beside me. She must be having a nightmare, I think. Part of me is glad. I still cannot bring myself to forgive her for the other day. At night, in our room, we ignore each other completely and lie back to back in bed like a couple of statues.
The crying grows louder. She sounds more in pain than frightened. ‘Beth!’ I whisper into the darkness. ‘What is the matter?’ As my eyes grow used to the darkness, I see her shadow slumped in the corner of the room.
She groans, then, ‘Help me,’ she suddenly gasps. ‘Help me, Alice.’
If this is another of her tricks, I think as I reluctantly climb from the bed, then I will scratch her jealous eyes out. Lizzie appears in the doorway with a lighted candle in her hand.
‘What is wrong?’ she asks. ‘What is all the crying about?’
I shrug my shoulders and point to Beth in the corner.
Lizzie brings the candle closer and the light from the flame catches on Beth’s face. Her eyes are huge and pleading. ‘Help me,’ she pleads. Lizzie bends down to pull Beth from the floor and as she does, the candle lights up the whole of Beth’s huddled form. I let out a half scream, half groan and Lizzie stumbles backwards. The candle flame flickers wildly, from Beth’s waxy face, then down again to her blood-soaked nightgown and the black pool on the floor that is spreading out from beneath her.
I don’t know what to do. I feel my own blood drain from my face as my heart pounds in my throat. It is like the other times, with Lady Egerton and Lillie and Papa. But I didn’t do it this time, I know I didn’t. I would never dare to wish for anything like this.
Lizzie is suddenly all efficiency and she calls for May and Agatha. I stand frozen by the bed and watch them lift Beth and carry her out of the room. She is whimpering like an injured dog. ‘It is nothing,’ they reassure her. ‘Calm yourself now.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ I shout after them. ‘I promise it wasn’t me!’
Lizzie turns to me, a puzzled expression on her face. ‘Well, of course you didn’t do it,’ she says. ‘It is God’s will that this has happened. Our Beloved’s will. It must have been the Devil’s child inside her, and the Devil’s child cannot be born into this world.’
They disappear down the stairs and I am left in the darkness with only the sounds of their murmurings from below. I try to understand what has just happened but my thoughts are moving too fast for me to catch. I move to the bed and lie down. The blanket is still warm and I think of the blood on the floor in the corner and wonder if that is still warm too.
I wait for them to bring Beth back to bed. They will have washed her, I think, and given her a clean nightgown and will already have put the bloodied one to soak. But they don’t come … and they don’t come. And soon my eyes grow heavy and I have to close them. I see Beth with a belly swollen and taut. She is screaming silently. Then I see, in her arms, a child all slippery with blood and its hair is black with it too. I see above the child’s forehead there are two strange marks. I look closer. I put my hand out to touch, then I recoil in horror as I realise they are stumps, tiny, bony stumps. The child opens its eyes then and they are blacker than oil. I can see inside your soul, says a cold, little voice.
I wake suddenly. Shivering. My heart pounding. Grey morning light cloaks the room and there is rain spattering against the window. My hands are stinging. When I open them and turn my palms to my face, I see they are pitted with small red crescents where I have clenched my fists in the night. It was only a dream, I tell myself.
But I am still alone in the bed, and when I look across the room there is a dark stain of blood on the floorboards. I throw back the blanket and open the window. Cold air and splinters of rain hit me in the face. I am awake now, wide awake. But none of it makes any sense. How could Beth have been with child? Did she lie with someone on one of her journeys outside with Our Beloved? My teeth are chattering now, my bones chilled through. I close the window and dress quickly. I must find Beth.
May and Agatha and Lizzie are bustling around the kitchen. There is fresh bread on the table and cups of steaming tea. The fire has already been lit and the room is warm. ‘Where is Beth?’ I ask. ‘How is she?’
Lizzie smiles at me brightly. ‘She is quite well,’ she says. ‘She is at the mansion, resting now. Our Beloved is praying for her. So do not fret.’
I sit at the table, my limbs heavy with relief. Lizzie pushes a cup of tea towards me. ‘Do not worry so,’ she says gently. ‘Beth will be back here with us soon.’
The first sip of tea scalds my throat, but the question on my tongue burns more, so I ask it. ‘How did she come to be with child?’
Lizzie presses her lips firmly together and lifts the teapot from the table. She takes it over to the range and fills it with more hot water.
‘How did Beth come to be with child?’ I ask again. I look to May and Agatha, but they have their backs to me. I slam my teacup onto the table and the tea spills out and creeps across the table to drip on the floor.
‘Will none of you answer me?’ I shout.
Lizzie brings the cloth that she had used to pick up the kettle and begins to mop up my spilled tea. ‘It is no concern of yours, Alice,’ she says firmly. ‘It was the Devil’s child.’ She sighs. ‘That is all you need to know. It was the Devil’s child and it has come out of her now.’ She leaves the sodden cloth on the table and wipes her hand on her apron. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘You must put it all from your mind. There is work to be done. There are grates to be cleaned and fires to be lit and time is getting on.’
She hurries out of the kitchen and May and Agatha follow her. Perhaps Lizzie is right, I think. Perhaps it is no concern of mine. Let Beth have her secret, as I have mine. Perhaps it is better that way.
I fill a pail with clean water and I take a brush and a cloth. Then I climb back up the stairs and I scrub at the blood on the floor until the water in the pail is the brightest red. Although I try hard to do as Lizzie said, and put it all from my mind, there is one question that keeps buzzing around inside my head like a persistent fly.
If it was the Devil’s child, then who is the Devil?