I went for my bag and got it out and stared at it as if it would answer for itself. Curse it, I thought, and shoved it up my sleeve and made for the door, but then I hesitated. I pulled the handkerchief back out. Maybe it would scare her off, after all. So I put it away, and by the time I’d done all this, the church bells was ringing again, and fifteen minutes had passed!
I were sweating when I reached the tea room, almost half an hour late. I thought she’d be gone, that I’d missed my opportunity. All that time thinking things through, worrying about stuff, and I’d never get to actually talk to her!
I couldn’t see for a moment when I stepped into that tea room. It were so dark in there compared to the sunshine. It smelt kind of off, and really, I had no clue why the women what was in there looked at me like they did (like I were something what they’d found on their shoe) because it weren’t the kind of place you could boast about.
Once my eyes had got used to the gloom, I searched for Bonnie. My heart were just about sinking when I discovered her tucked up in one corner, her fancy frock blending in with the patterned wallpaper and fringed lamps.
I sat quickly; I didn’t want the other customers to remember my face too much. My head were itching with all the heat from under my bonnet and my skin were prickling – that kind of prickle that could’ve been from the sun or could’ve been just my own nerves.
The table were already cluttered with tea things, all very distracting. And then Bonnie asked for more tea, and the waitress brought it over, and the space on the table shrank even more, and, oh God, but I found it all such a nuisance! Why had I chosen to meet her in a tea room? It were all too closely packed in, and the walls looked as if they had hands on the other sides of them squeezing them together. It were noisy with the women whispering amongst themselves and Bonnie pouring the tea and the tap of the spoon against the china as she stirred the liquid round and round …
I grabbed the cup and drank. It were hot, but not scalding. I hadn’t had sugar with my tea for years, and the taste were comforting. Bonnie said something, but I couldn’t hear her; I were years away, drinking tea with my ma in the parlour and laughing at something I couldn’t now remember. And by the time I’d come to the end of my drink, the tea room didn’t seem quite so small or loud, and the prickling of my skin had stopped, and I could breathe properly again.
Bonnie were waiting for me to say something. She were looking at me expectantly.
‘You don’t remember me,’ I said.
She shook her head. How were it that she didn’t remember someone whose life she had destroyed?
‘You knew my father. Samuel Blyth.’
Well, you should have seen her face fall when I told her his name! That were confirmation enough in that one look, better than any confession she could’ve give from her own lips. I felt like standing up right there and saying Ha! I have you now! But I didn’t say nothing, I just watched her as her memories took her back all them years until she looked at me again. My name were on the tip of her tongue, I could tell.
‘Luella,’ I said, to put her out her misery.
‘What do you want, Luella?’
‘A name.’
She laughed, but it were one of them stiff laughs what didn’t think something were funny at all. That’s when I played the whole game of trying to get Frank’s name out of her. She weren’t giving it up easy, and he’d been right to say she still thought something of him; why else would she try to cover up her knowledge of him? But I got it out of her in the end, and I fair on put the wits up her when I told her I knew about all the women she’d worked for. When I said I planned on killing Frank, well, she went whiter than me!
I moved quick out the tea room. To be truthful, I were so pleased with myself that I couldn’t stop grinning – I got some stares from the folks I passed on the street, I tell you! I couldn’t believe it’d been so easy. Our plan were actually working. And if Frank were right, it wouldn’t be long before she were trying to catch me up and stop me from doing what I were planning on.
I slowed my step a bit because I didn’t want her to lose me. Sneaking a glance over my shoulder, I saw her come out the tea room and stagger with the brightness of the day. I rounded the corner just as her face turned my way. I used the shop windows as looking glasses and, sure enough, there she were in the reflections, running after me.
I got to the grocer’s and waved hello at him as I waited, looking at his vegetable display.
‘Luella!’
Could I stop the smile on my face? No, I could not.
I waited in the next day and the day after. It rained, and I had no intention of getting Ma’s dress wet seeing as it were the only one I had with me. Nor did I know when Bonnie would be calling in to see me, and I didn’t want to miss her. So I sat by the window looking out over Stowmouth and breathing in the air what the rain had washed fresh, daydreaming of killing her.
I’d taken Grandma’s flask, and half a cup of its contents would have Bonnie sleeping before she knew it. That would give me time to string her up without her struggling. I’d wait until the medicine had wore off and she were just waking up, and then I’d be able to see the horror on her face when she knew she were about to die. Frank must have some rope somewhere, I thought, and I wanted her to go the same way as Pa had gone. And if that proved too troublesome, maybe I’d stab her wrists like Ma had and watch her bleed out.
It were as I were thinking this that a beautiful flash of blue caught my eye. Bonnie were on her way.
I arranged myself by the door and heard her talking to the grocer in that toity way of hers and then her footsteps coming up the stairs. When she knocked, I counted to three before I answered.
She took a good look around as she stepped inside and crinkled her nose at everything. She thought I might’ve done a runner, she said, but I reminded her that she promised she’d help me.
I were taking it all very tongue-in-cheek for a while, I have to say. She were still a bit jumpy like she were the day before yesterday, but it were clear she’d been thinking and that she had a plan in mind. And I knew that her plan were to keep me on her side, to lead me up the garden path before trying to kill me, because I’d got a letter from Frank that morning telling me about it. Here she were, trying to put one over on me when I were the one playing her from the start!
But then she did something I weren’t expecting. She pulled out a little gold ring on a chain round her neck and said she were married to Frank.
Well, he’d never mentioned that! I thought it were just another one of her lies for a second; the ring could’ve been something else she’d stolen from a mistress. But there were something about it … the way she held it real gentle, the way it were hidden behind her gown and next to her heart, the way she put it back inside her bodice and seemed to relax once it were on her skin. It were how I were with Ma’s locket, like she had a real love for it.
I cursed myself for it after, but at the time, I couldn’t help but feel sad for her. She were in love with him, and he were plotting to do her over.
She tried pleading with me again, for my own sake as well as Frank’s. She were getting careless in her desperation; her mouth were running away from her. My pity started to wear. I pulled myself together, told myself to stick to the plan.
‘Whatever he has done? You know what he’s done?’
She admitted Frank were the murderer. I’d never seen someone lie so easy. And about the man they was supposed to be in love with too. She were pinning it on him to save herself. That set the rage up in me again, and I thought, curse you, Bonnie Hearn; I’ll have you strung up on a pole if it’s the last thing I do!
I went a bit crazy on her. I locked her in and wouldn’t give over the key until she said where he were. She made out that Frank were such a terrible, violent man, what’d beaten her up before, but however much she tried to scare me off, I were having none of it.
‘I will kill him!’ I screamed the words, and as I said them I weren’t thinking of Frank, I w
ere thinking of her and just how much I wanted to hurt her. I knew I couldn’t though, not there. My pulse were throbbing so fast, and I’d got myself in such a state that the only thing I could do were cry.
She tried comforting me and made me sit by her on the bed and had me weep against her. She stroked my back and cooed to me as if she actually cared about me, but all it did were make me think of my ma and how it should’ve been her there to comfort me and hold me. Bonnie’s lies had made that impossible.
‘How can you stand it?’ I whispered. Part of me really did want to know how she could’ve lived all these years without dying of a guilty conscience. ‘How can you bear to know what you know and live with it?’
She mistook my meaning, of course, and thought I were talking about Frank being a murderer. I realised then that I’d get nowhere feeling sorry for myself and wishing things was different. Things was as they was. Only the future were mine to change.
‘You could be free of him,’ I said, and she kept still and listened. ‘Do you love him?’
‘Not anymore.’ It sounded like a lie, but how could I be sure?
‘Then let us kill him.’
Again, she made a show of saying it were impossible. I let her talk herself round in circles until she took control and said the plan what she’d had in her mind the whole time.
‘Arsenic. Kill Frank with arsenic.’
‘How?’
‘Fly papers. I shall lead you to Frank. I shall ready the poison. I shall keep him oblivious to our plan. And then you may pour him some tea and watch him drink it and watch him die.’
It were perfect.
The arsenic would be meant for me, of course. That’s how she’d chosen to kill me. She were already a murderer anyway, one more on her conscience would mean nothing. And there she were, acting all nice and like a good little woman, and not a flicker of guilt passed over her face. By God, it made me laugh!
‘You really are something, Bonnie.’
Chapter 11
I couldn’t sleep that night. I packed and re-packed my bag in the glow of the candlelight, and in the small hours, I set that candle on the table and snuck out of the room. I had to leave by the back door, and I came out in an alleyway what smelt of piss because it were so close to the privies.
In Stowmouth, most of the windows was dark and the streets quiet, but every now and then as I went by a narrow passage I heard noises what was unusual to me. I tried to tell myself it were foxes because foxes was always causing mischief, but I weren’t really that stupid. Men and whores lurked in the shadows. I walked quicker, keeping my gaze on the looming black mass of the church so I wouldn’t see anything what didn’t want to be seen.
The moon and stars lit my way, and I sat where I had the other day on that bench and watched the house.
It were a really lovely night. A barn owl swooped not far off, real foxes barked, mice rustled somewhere nearby. Their squeaks made me think of the time when one of Mrs Campbell’s cats had caught a mouse. It were a bloody sight. I’d found it on the stone step by the back door. All its fur were matted with red gloop, and then it moved.
I scooped it up and took it into the kitchen. Mrs Campbell didn’t scream or shout at me, she just took the mouse in her soft hands and held it close. The creature were struggling for breath as we sat beside the range. I cuddled up to Mrs Campbell’s arm, and together we watched the mouse take its very last breath, and both of us shed a tear.
Nature can be cruel, she said, as she stroked its tiny head. The poor thing had emptied its bowels into her hands, and the yellow had seeped into the wrinkles of her palms, and I remembered thinking she’d been stained with death.
The memory made me cry. Slow tears trickled down my cheeks. She’d been such a kind woman. I felt my heart break again when I thought of how she’d spent her last days with the agony of grief.
But, mercifully, I couldn’t dwell too long on that pain. The sky were lightening, and as it did, I heard the gentle click of a door being closed very carefully. Bonnie, with her posh leather case, crept up from the yard and tiptoed away from the house. I crouched behind the bench so I could see what she did.
She turned back to the house when she were on the green less than ten feet away from me. I could hear her breath blow in and out over her lips as she stood there real still, while I tried not to breathe at all. Her eyes flicked over the house, then rested on the top window. Her whole body quivered. Then, as if someone had called her name, she turned towards Stowmouth and strode over the green without looking back. I kept in the shadows as I followed her.
The town were waking up now. Windows glowed with candlelight, and the sinful sounds I’d heard only hours previous had gone.
Bonnie shone as she walked through the streets in her blue dress. She made her way to the grocer’s and stopped on the corner of the street a little way off, looking up at my window. I dipped into the shadow of a doorway some way behind her.
She pulled something out of a secret pocket in the lining of her skirts, something white and about the size of her palm, and then slid it into the post box.
So, a letter. To Frank, no doubt, confirming we was on our way.
She jumped out her skin when I said good morning to her, and she looked at the grocer’s window where my candlelight shone in the gloom. Her face flushed. Caught red-handed!
I weren’t about to gloat though. I didn’t want her to know I’d seen what she were up to, so I took her hand and dragged her out of Stowmouth because there were no point waiting around. The day needed to start. The journey needed to begin. The plan needed to be put into action.
I were getting all giddy with the excitement of it as Stowmouth fell away behind us. I were pulling her along, using the river as a guide as I had done when I’d walked into town five days ago. I’d forgotten that I shouldn’t have known where we was heading, and for a moment I thought I’d given the whole game away, but somehow I managed to convince her otherwise. She were too concerned with the state of her shoes to think too much about my error.
I bit my cheeks to stop me saying another word. I were getting too carried away. If I didn’t get myself under control, I’d ruin everything. So I let Bonnie lead us out the valley and to the road and kept a pace or two behind her as we set off for Frank’s cottage.
I shan’t repeat everything; you know most of it already. I shall tell only the important parts again. The other times, I were just holding my tongue and doing my utmost not to kill her.
That were until the coach trip and that awful man, Paul Meadows. God, he were a terrible sight, and he stank to high heaven. We thought him nothing more than a fool in that coach, and can you believe it, but we actually laughed together as we tormented him. I think both of us was taking out our frustrations on him because we couldn’t take it out on each other.
But then Bonnie had to let him eat supper with us. I never understood that about her: her politeness, her need to please. She were forever smiling at people (apart from me, of course, though she had at the start when she didn’t know she hated me). She made conversation with Paul as he got more and more drunk, and she didn’t once say he’d had enough wine. I would’ve left them to it, but she’d set me up as a blasted maid for her, and even I knew it would look odd for a maid to leave her mistress alone with a strange man. And really, it weren’t a bad cover for me, to be her maid. No one takes no notice of a maid. No one looked twice at me when they heard of my station. Bonnie got all the attention. And that were just fine with me. I didn’t want my face printed and stuck up on sheets all over Somerset if ever they found her body.
But then that Paul Meadows turned nasty. I could see he would; his eyes was too close together. He were a bad drunk, one what liked to tease and thought himself hilarious at it too.
‘What a pretty little thing you are, Lucy. How old are you, Lucy?’ he said as we sat outside.
I focused on the silkiness of the willow branches. As if the stench of his breath hadn’t been bad enough, he dared to touch my
cheek. I were always cautious of anyone what went to touch me. Too often it had ended in a strike. Too often boys had reached for me only to pinch me and laugh. Paul Meadows were no different than them boys. I fair on whacked his hand away and growled at him.
I were all ready to set at him again when Bonnie got up and said she were tired. In truth, it were her way of trying to control the situation. She didn’t want to cause a fuss, see; ladies didn’t cause fusses. So up she stood, still smiling, though I could see there were something in her face, a stiffness what showed her unease. And that’s when Paul went for her legs.
Well, I’d never known anything like it. For a strange man to go under the skirts of a lady! I think both me and Bonnie was stunned for a moment and unable to say anything but stare at him as he carried on pining and whining at her feet and pawing at her. It all kind of slowed down as I watched the two of them. I’d never seen Bonnie’s face like that before, even when I’d talked of murder. She went very still and turned very pale, and she had such a look of terror about her that it made me feel scared too.
Paul clung on to her, his hands getting higher and higher. Her skirts was stretched, and the material were close on ripping. He pulled on her legs and she were juddering, and it suddenly reminded me so much of Pa’s hanging that I couldn’t move. I saw the hangman tugging on my pa’s bound legs as he jerked like a puppet on a string.
And then a scream. My ma. Her face burnt red with rage and grief, streaked with tears as she bent over and yelled at the earth.
My own fists was balled tight; my legs couldn’t hold me back. I pummelled Paul Meadows’ body like I wished I’d been able to pummel that hangman eight years ago. I slashed at him and thumped him and didn’t care for the ache and the swell of my own hands. I wanted to hear his bones break beneath me. I wanted him to fall at my feet so I could kick him and spit at him – anything to get him off my pa and stop my ma from shouting.
Convenient Women Collection Page 14