‘And have you a room for the night?’
‘Oh yes! Absolutely!’ He ran out, and his footsteps pounded on the stairs. Above us, there was the sound of a bed being made, a window being flung open, objects being hammered to release the dust.
‘You said we wasn’t far. Why are we waiting another night?’
‘Because …’ My headache was worsening. The glare from the sun outside stabbed into my eyes. ‘Because I cannot do it today, Luella. Forgive me, but I cannot. Tomorrow, a new day, and I promise you, we will go to Frank.’
She rose and, taking a leaf of lettuce with her, strolled out of the inn. I watched her through squinted eyes as she sat on the grass beside the cat which stood to meet her and wrapped itself around her torso, headbutting her and purring so loudly that I could hear it through the glass.
I picked the soft middle out of my slice of bread and rolled it tight between my fingers.
What had I been thinking? To murder … to plot a girl’s murder! How had I become so wicked?
Perhaps the more one tells oneself they are evil, the more they truly become it.
I could not look at her. I could not look at the food on my plate. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Frank, to think of him dead, to think of him arrested, to think of him swinging on the end of a rope … and as I saw my Frank’s body blowing in the wind, the vision morphed to one from eight years ago. Samuel, the hangman pulling on his legs, and the scream somewhere beyond my vision, the like of which I’d never heard before and hadn’t heard since: the wail of someone’s world being destroyed.
The landlord stumbled downstairs, breathless, his cheeks red and glistening. ‘All ready for you, madam. It’s our best room, fresh flowers, privy just out the back.’
‘Yes, yes, thank you.’ I stalked over to him at such a pace that he jumped behind the bar away from me as if I might attack him. ‘Have you paper? And pen and ink?’
He scratched at his ear and gazed about himself as if expecting to see the items miraculously appear beside the bottles of rum and gin. ‘I might have some upstairs.’
‘Go and fetch it then.’ I shooed him upstairs and followed closely behind, waiting at the door to the best room as he rummaged in his own cramped quarters. There was a muffled cry, perhaps a child or a disturbed cat, then he came towards me.
‘This is all I can find.’
The paper was thin and had some kind of tally of expenses on one side of it. My haste made it tear under the nib of the pen, and the ink was low in the pot and almost dried out so that my writing was spotted and unclear, but Frank would understand well enough.
‘Wait!’ I said as he was about to return downstairs.
I folded the note four times until it was as small as the tip of my finger, and then I went to the landlord, whose gaze was firmly planted on the floor. Taking his hand, I wrapped his fingers around the note and pressed hard.
‘You will take this to Ulstone this afternoon – this minute. You will take it to the blacksmith there and give it to no one but him, you understand?’
He nodded, and his eyes flicked up to me. ‘Who will look after the inn?’
I would have cursed at him, but I bit my lip just in time. My tooth took off a sheath of skin, and I tasted the tang of blood on my tongue. He saw this and winced, and his eyes slipped sideways, then back to me, then sideways again, and I wondered if he thought me some kind of lunatic escaped from the asylum.
I breathed in, and over the clutch of pain in my forehead, I smiled at him. ‘What is your name?’
The question confused him, and after a moment of thought, he said, ‘David Roberts.’
I still held his hand – I had been squeezing it hard. I loosened my grip and caressed my thumb over his fingers. ‘David, you have been kind to me. The salad really was delicious.’
A smile tilted his lips. I edged a little closer and lowered my voice. ‘It is an unusual request, I know, but you would be doing me a wonderful favour if you could take this note, for it is rather urgent, I am afraid. I would go myself, but I have been travelling for so long already, and I am so tired and so warm.’ My hand left his and came to my throat, where I unplucked the buttons about my neck. His eyes followed. ‘I need to rest. I need to lie down.’
He nodded slowly.
‘My maid will take care of things downstairs while you are gone.’
‘It’ll take a few hours,’ he said, but there was no protest in his voice now.
‘As long as you deliver it today. And when you get back, I should like to buy your best bottle of wine, and I should like you to drink with me.’
‘Thank you, madam, very kind of you.’ He licked his lips but made no attempt to move.
Patting his hand, I kissed him on the cheek; he smelt of sweat and wood smoke. ‘You must hurry now, David.’
Blushing, he turned to head on his journey.
‘David.’ I stopped him as he was halfway down the stairs. ‘I trust you will not open the note. It is private, you see, and the man whom you are to deliver it to will know if anyone but me has seen it. He likes things kept private, that man, and has been known for his temper. You will not anger him, will you, by opening the note? I should be so upset if he was to hurt you.’
‘No, madam, no. Of course I shan’t open it.’ He lifted it before him, as if to show me exactly what he was doing, and carefully placed it in the pocket inside his jacket. ‘No one shall see it, madam, I give you my word.’
I let my eyes mist. ‘Thank you, David. And go through the back door, won’t you, so as not to disturb my maid?’
He nodded.
‘I knew you were a good man. As soon as I saw you, I knew it. I shall be waiting for your return.’
Another wash of blood to his cheeks, then David was running down the stairs. From the casement window a few moments later I saw him making for the road. He had taken the back door and was hidden by the hedgerows which only I, from this vantage point, could see over. Poor man, his lungs would be blown out if he continued like that the whole way to Ulstone!
I slipped my chain out from under my dress. The gold wedding band was hot where it had been against my skin. I pressed it to my lips in a kiss and whispered to the wind to make David quick and sure on his journey, as below me Luella talked nonsense to the cat.
I woke to find Luella glaring down at me. Pushing myself upright and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I saw how the sun had slipped lower in the sky, its honey-coloured rays making long shadows of the hedgerows, illuminating the palest line of blue on the horizon. Had David reached Ulstone yet?
‘You was talking,’ Luella said. She was sitting on the bed, and it took me a while to realise what the strange noise in the room was: the cat. It had curled into a ball on the pillow beside me. Luella was stroking it, making its moulting fur filter through the air and land on my face. I scowled at the creature which gazed back at me without a care.
‘What was I saying?’ My mouth had that dreadful stale taste, and as I ran my tongue over my gums, I dislodged a soggy crust of bread from between my teeth.
‘He’s gone,’ Luella said, ignoring my question. ‘The landlord. I can’t find him nowhere.’
‘What do you want him for?’
She shrugged and curled the cat’s tail around her finger.
‘Perhaps he has some business elsewhere. He will be back for dinner tonight.’
‘How do you know?’
‘We haven’t paid him yet.’
There was a glass of water on the table. Luella must have brought it up for me. I sipped it gratefully, smiling at her, but she was looking at my chest, for the chain was loose, and the ring shimmered brightly against the blue of my gown.
‘What’s it like to be in love, Bonnie?’
She was melancholy. Too long in the sun, I guessed. ‘We talked about that yesterday.’
‘Love hurts, you said, and I can believe that. But there must be more. There must be joy. Why would anyone do it if there were no joy in it?’
&n
bsp; She was a strange girl. I had never known anyone so intent on murder and revenge, and with such a naïve heart.
‘There is joy,’ I said, for I could not stop myself; the sadness in her face, the confusion that always seemed to plague her, made me want to make her understand. ‘There is nothing better in the whole world than to love and be loved in return.’
‘Love is when you’ll do anything for someone, ain’t it? Like die for them.’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
Luella’s fingers trailed from the cat’s head to the tip of its tail. ‘And what makes you love somebody?’
I searched for an answer but could not find one. ‘There is no logic to it.’
‘So we can love the wrong people? Like you loved Frank, and he were the wrong person?’
A part of me wished to strike her whenever she said his name. Another part of me wanted to tell her the truth, that I loved him still, and to beg her for forgiveness, for how were we to know back then what would have become of her? How were we to know she would have grown into such a damaged woman? Fathers die all the time. Fathers are unknown, unwanted, absent, and daughters do not turn out like Luella.
‘I never knew my father,’ I said. Her hand faltered, and the cat raised its head to remind her to continue fussing it. ‘Not even his name. Hearn was the name of the man my mother married after I was born. For three years, I was just Bonnie. All I know is that he came on a ship from some hot country, for my mother was as pale as you, and was gone on it again before the sun had risen.’
‘Do you think of him?’
‘Only when I look at the sea. I’ve always liked it, you know, and I’ve wondered if that is a bit of him in me. Mother got sick just crossing a bridge.’
‘You’d like to find him?’
I shook my head. ‘What would be the point? I might not like what I find. Sometimes it’s better just to dream and leave it at that.’
She nodded, and frowned at the embroidery on the bedspread. Something passed behind her eyes: clouds of thoughts. The cat’s purrs grew softer as it slipped into sleep, and Luella was steeped in a beam of gold from the setting sun as she clutched her locket.
‘Bonnie.’ Her voice was low and almost inaudible, but her gaze, when it finally left the bedspread, pierced into me. ‘Bonnie, I think you’re right. What you said before, about being free. I should like to be free, Bonnie.’
I reached for her, leant close to her so that our faces were inches apart. My voice came out feverishly. ‘Be free, Luella. Go now; take the money I have and go to the docks. Never think of us again. Have a new life. Find a man to love. There will be a ship sailing in the morning, no doubt –’
‘But I must know.’
I stopped my rushing words. Do not scare her away! I inhaled slowly. ‘What must you know?’
Her hands slipped off the locket and came to mine. They were hot and damp as if there was a fire burning within her which she was struggling to contain. ‘Please, Bonnie. Tell me the truth and I’ll go. I promise I’ll go before the clock strikes the next hour. I don’t want to harm no one’ – her eyes swelled with tears – ‘but I must hear the truth so that I can rest. So that we can both rest and know the truth has been spoken, is known, and is regretted.’
My ribs pounded, for my heart was beating so fast.
A tear dropped over the rim of her eye and ran down her cheek. ‘What happened the night Mrs Campbell’s nephew died?’
Could I say it? I hadn’t even been able to think of it these last few years; I had managed to hide it away in the furthest corner of my mind so that it came out only during my nightmares.
The truth.
It was a chain around my heart squeezing the life from me. But to let one person hear it, the only person to whom it mattered, would it free me? How long had I locked it away where it could not escape? It had stayed a secret for so long I was not sure that I could ever find the key to free it.
‘Nicholas Campbell.’ The name alone was like a boulder off my tongue. ‘He was a nasty man. He didn’t do a thing for his aunt, but it was his name on her house, her accounts, her allowances.’
‘He inherited the Campbell carpet factory from his uncle, I know.’
‘And you know it was him who sacked your father?’
She nodded. ‘Said he’d been fiddling the books. Said he’d been stealing, but we never saw no money.’
The sun had spread to me and was burning my skin. I pressed the back of my hand to my cheek. ‘Well, anyway, Nicholas got rid of your father, and one night I found him in the study – heard him – heard something scratching in there. I thought it might have been Samuel returned –’
‘What for? Why would my father have returned?’
‘I don’t know.’ I cleared my throat, swallowed. ‘Anyway, I opened the door and found Nicholas. He’d been drinking, I could smell it in the room – your father never drank, did he? Yes, so I found him in there, looking things over, and I was about to shut the door on him and leave him to his business, but he’d seen me by then. He was in such a foul temper and green with drink. He’ – I breathed in – ‘he came for me, and … and he … tickled me, as you say. He tried to, at least.’
I dared not look Luella in the eye. Instead, I gazed at her locket and wondered if corpses really could turn in their graves. ‘I fought him. I was vicious; I did all I could. Frank must have heard it. I didn’t know he was there until Nicholas fell away from me. Frank used a poker from the fire. Ever such a mess everywhere.’
I bit my lip and took a chance; I looked up. Luella’s blue eyes seemed to wobble because of all the water in them. Her chin, too, wriggled, but she contained herself.
‘I didn’t know what else to do, Luella, who else to turn to. Samuel was a kind man, I knew it, and he knew the town and the people. I thought he could help.’
‘You called for him,’ she whispered.
‘I did, yes. I wish now that I had not. I wish now that I had never opened that study door. But I did. Samuel came and saw everything.’ I chewed my lip, hard, felt the blades of my teeth slice through my own flesh and did not look up. ‘I didn’t know they would blame it on him. They said he had reason to do it, that there was blood on him when they went for him the next day after they found the body. That Nicholas was in the study proved it further, so they said. And, well, Nicholas had just sacked him; he had every reason to do it.’
‘Except he didn’t, did he?’
I couldn’t answer her.
‘You let my pa die.’
Her words struck my heart, for that was the truth of it. I had watched as his life had spluttered and gushed out of him; hanging was the most degrading of deaths.
Shame enveloped me. ‘He was a good man, your father. I want you to know that.’
Luella was cold, steely, changed. I peeked at her and saw that her tears had dried, that her chin was still, that her fist was white as she gripped the locket. There was a creak in her neck as she nodded mechanically. ‘And that is the truth? That is exactly what happened?’
‘That is the truth.’
Then she screamed.
She shook with it, her mouth stretched wide, her lips cracking and bleeding, until she had no breath left in her lungs. The cat leapt off the bed and sprinted out of the room, and then Luella fell forward, smothered her face with the pillow, and sobbed.
As her body roiled and jolted, I reached for her and touched her arm. At the feel of me, she stopped and held herself stiff.
‘Luella? Luella, I am sorry. I am so sorry. Now you know.’
She pulled her arm away from me and pushed herself upright. She threw her legs off the bed so that her back was to me. Her hair frizzed all around her head, and she wiped her face with her hands. She got to her feet, patted down her skirt and gently, as if it hurt her to do so, walked out of the room.
‘Now I know.’
I sat very still and listened. I heard her run down the stairs, the door of the pub open, and her skirt brush over the grass. Creeping to t
he window, there was no sign of her outside. The cat now slept on the bench; the wood must have held the sun’s warmth. The sun itself hung low on the horizon like a giant peach, its juices oozing over the landscape, drowning everything in gold.
I returned to the bed. Perhaps that was it; perhaps she had gone just as quickly and as absurdly as she’d arrived. Perhaps I would never see her again. The money remained in my bag, but Luella never seemed interested in money anyway.
There was no use trying to understand her. I would have to wait and pray and hope that the landlord would be back soon and tell me more good news so that I could sleep soundly.
He came within the hour, puffing and panting. His linen shirt hung off him in dark folds where the sweat had dragged it down, and his jacket was looped over his arm. I was waiting for him downstairs with a pint of beer ready. He took it off me eagerly and drank it all in six gulps, then put the glass on the bar, wiped his lips, and burped.
‘Manners,’ he said, patting his chest.
‘Did you do it? Did you give the note to the blacksmith?’
‘I did.’
‘And?’
He frowned.
‘What did the blacksmith say? Did he read it?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t stick around long enough. He showed me out, and what with you saying he had a temper, I thought I best do as he wanted.’
I smiled instead of spitting at him as I wished to do. There was no point getting angry with him. Frank had the note, and that was all that mattered. I breathed deeply, sighed in relief. All would be well now if Frank did as I said. All would be well come the morning.
‘Thank you, David. And home before the sun has gone down – how you must have run!’
‘I did, madam, I did. For you.’
A timid look came to his eye, with a slither of coyness that did not suit a man of his years and grubbiness.
‘Then you better make us dinner and find your best wine.’
Convenient Women Collection Page 7