‘You’re probably right.’ She glanced out of the window and sighed. ‘We both need a fresh start. And I’m looking forward to being on the sea.’
‘I know.’ She were itching for it, I could tell. ‘Promise me, Bonnie, that you won’t do what you did here.’ I meant about her stealing from the ladies, of course, but I didn’t put it into words in case there was any spies around.
‘I’ll try.’
The coach moved; the driver were climbing onto his seat. Bonnie opened the door.
‘You’re a good person, Luella.’
‘I’m a –’ I couldn’t say the word out loud. Murderer. No matter how much I tried to justify his death, Frank’s words kept spiralling round in my mind: What would that make you, Luella? You’d be worse than me.
She squeezed my hand. ‘We both are,’ she said, and somehow it were a comfort to me. ‘And your father was a good man, remember that. Don’t hate him. Hate does no one any good.’
She dismounted and turned to me one last time. ‘Goodbye, Luella.’
Then she smiled that beautiful smile of hers and strode off for the docks.
Chapter 16
I’d never had any intention of sailing to America. It weren’t a new world what I wanted, it were an old one, but that were impossible.
I went north, as I said I would. And then I went east so that when I looked out at the sea, I wouldn’t have to think of Bonnie across the water and what kind of life she might have been living.
I never heard if they found Frank’s body. As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months and the months into years, I always watched out for news of it in the papers, but I never saw nothing. That didn’t mean I stopped worrying about it. I had new nightmares from then on, and in every one of them Frank came back to haunt me. He dragged me to the scaffold and put the noose round my neck, and I looked down to see Bonnie smiling at me. I woke each time with such a sweat on that I had to get out of bed and stand outside for a bit, even in the winter.
My husband asked about my dreams. I told him they was nothing to worry about, and he believed me. I married a good man, see, a man what were nothing like my pa and nothing like Frank. A man whose imagination couldn’t stretch further than the markers of his farmland. He were an ugly sort, some years older than me, but he were kind, and he took good care of his animals, and I knew that I’d be as happy as I could be with him.
I never saw Bonnie again, and I liked it that way. It meant that some days, when I were feeling bad, I could think that she were over there and hating her new life. Other times, I liked to think of her in a great big house with her own servants and dressed in the best gowns money could buy. Either way, I never knew the truth.
Sometimes, it’s better just to dream.
Epilogue
Summer, 1857
I turned and thrust with all my strength. The metal struck against bone, a hard, cracking sound like the breaking of an eggshell. Nicholas stopped abruptly. The poker had smashed against his temple and split the skin. Blood oozed from the wound as his eyes stared vacantly at me. He dropped to his knees and fell at my feet.
After all the commotion, the sudden silence was shocking. The poker slid from my hand – for my skin had turned wet with sweat – and thudded onto the wooden floor. About me, the study was in turmoil. The chair was on its side, papers were scattered across the ground, the corner of the rug was turned over, some books had been torn off their shelves. I stood in the middle of it all, unable to move.
Barking. A door opening. Frank entered the room with Patch by his feet. The dog growled at me and jumped over Nicholas, nudging at his body.
‘What have you done?’ Frank prodded Nicholas with his boot. ‘Jesus Christ, Bonnie. What have you done?’
Patch started barking again; the sound stabbed into my brain. ‘Shut up!’
The dog barked and snarled at me. Frank crouched before the creature and held out his hand, shushed it and stroked it until it had calmed down. Then he led it out of the study and gave it a scrap of something from his pocket, and the dog ran away. Fickle.
‘What happened?’
‘He was going to kill me.’
‘So you did it to him first? Christ!’
‘What do you think I should have done?’
‘Nothing. You should have just done nothing, Bonnie.’ He rubbed his hand over his face. ‘What should we do?’
‘I’ll sort it.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll sort it, all right?’ I wanted him gone. I would have said anything to make him leave so I wouldn’t have to see the horror on his face whenever he looked at me. ‘Please, Frank. Go back to the barn. Get your things.’
‘You’ll hang, Bonnie.’
‘I won’t.’ I had promised myself I would not die for someone like Nicholas Campbell. ‘Get your things and leave. I’ll find you when everything is sorted.’
He fled the room. I was running over the dirt track and into Bridgefield under the light of the moon before I had even cleaned myself up.
Samuel’s house was in the town on a nice street. Trees grew on the kerbsides, and the Georgian terraces had big windows and smartly painted doors. It was where the middle classes lived, and as I knocked, I had a fleeting moment of panic that a maid would answer, but then I remembered they had let their tweeny go after Samuel had been sacked.
After too many long minutes, the door creaked open. He was in his robe, and the lamp lit only half of his frowning face. When he saw me, he took my head into his hands and kissed me. I was grateful for the human contact, for his kindness. Samuel was always kind. It was that which had made me lie with him, that and greed and guilt, for I had played him like I had played everybody else when he had been the least deserving of it.
‘Something awful has happened.’ I sobbed against his shoulder and enjoyed the sympathy that Frank had not given me.
He dived into his house for another few moments, came out in trousers and shirtsleeves, and both of us ran to Mrs Campbell’s house hand in hand.
He didn’t falter when he saw the body. He took me into his arms once more and kissed my head and told me that everything would be all right.
‘How? I have killed him, Samuel. The police will come for me.’
‘We will tell them the truth: that you were defending yourself. Everyone knows the man is a brute.’
‘They will hang me.’
‘They will not. It was an accident.’
But all I could see was a set of gallows. I thought of my life in the days, the minutes, I had remaining of it.
‘Samuel.’ I made him look at me. I took his hand, his hand which had Nicholas’s blood on it because it had been holding mine, and I placed it on my stomach. I hadn’t told him. I couldn’t ever find the words before, not with Frank always lingering somewhere nearby, but now I had no choice. ‘I am with child.’
He stared at me, shocked, then his eyes filled with tears. He took me into his arms and kissed me, again and again, and it felt so good, and when I said I needed him, I meant it that time. I could have stayed in his embrace for years.
‘Get yourself clean,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘Burn the dress if you must. Go to your room. When you come downstairs in the morning, raise the alarm. It will look like a robbery.’
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘Of course you can.’ He gripped my face. We were an inch apart from each other. ‘You can do it for the baby.’
I nodded. ‘But you –’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll sort things here. I love you, Bonnie.’
I pressed into him. All of me wanted to say it back, for wasn’t he so perfect? Kind and gentle and doting – the very best of men. But my heart had never burned for him as it had burned for Frank.
‘Be careful,’ was all I managed to say before I prised myself away from him and walked for the door.
A noise. A grunt. I thought it had come from Samuel, but he frowned when he heard it too. Both of us turned to the body on t
he floor. It was no longer still. Nicholas was moving. Slowly, his hands began pushing into the floor. He was trying to get up, and he was groaning with the effort.
The dead were coming back to get me. I ran behind the desk, quaking with terror. The dead were rising …
It all happened so quickly. Samuel picked up the poker. Nicholas raised his head. For an instant, Nicholas looked at me with bloodshot eyes, and his lip curled back into a snarl, but before he could move another inch, there was that terrible sound again. Another crack, wetter this time. And then another and another. Nicholas was face down on the floor once more. His legs jerked a couple of times as Samuel smashed the poker into his skull.
‘Stop!’
Samuel dropped the poker. He gasped for breath. He pushed his hair out of his face, wiped the sweat off his brow. He seemed so bewildered as he looked from Nicholas to me, so scared and childlike, that I ran to him and held him close to me.
‘It will be all right,’ I said, repeating his words, for I could not think of any others. ‘It will be all right.’ I kissed his lips and tasted Nicholas’s blood. ‘Stick to the plan.’
I kissed him one last time, and then I left him. I didn’t know how long he stood in that study staring at the person he had just murdered; I didn’t hear him leave. Upstairs in my room, I scrubbed my skin until it was speckled with bruises. I fed my gown into the fire and opened a window to air the smell. I lay on my bed and did not sleep as I thought of the body downstairs. I held on to my stomach, on to my baby.
‘Everything will be all right,’ I whispered to my child. I thought if I said it enough then it would come true.
I was wrong.
The baby seeped out from between my legs the night after its father swung on the end of a rope.
The end
Volume Two
THE PROMISE KEEPER
Inspired by
A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can't we all be like that wise old bird?
Prologue
She blinks, takes in the darkness. Her lids are as sharp as crushed glass over her eyeballs; tears swamp but do not soothe. She feels the clumps of her own hair laced across the pillow as she rolls her head to one side, unable to lift it, unable to sit up, unable to stand, no matter how hard she might try.
Her body clenches involuntarily. Her muscles bunch, spasm. Her stomach heaves again. Her arse pushes, but she is dried out.
The convulsion ends. Still, the sickness remains. Liquid swims in her mouth. Stale. Foul. The stench of her. God! She would shudder at the sight of herself if her mind were clear, but it is not. It is as if someone has taken hold of her brain and is squeezing it, crushing it into confusion, blinding her with agony.
Slow … she is slowing down. Every movement is hard.
She tries to breathe but she has not the energy. Breathe … breathe … but what is the use? It will be better this way.
She closes her eyes. She is slipping away. The pain and the fear are all slipping away.
Chapter 1
January 1869
‘How long before we arrive?’ Liz says and swallows down the taste of bile. The journey is longer than she had been expecting. The air is too clear out here, everything so green. It makes her head feel light upon her neck.
‘Not long now,’ Mary says as each tremble of the carriage makes her cheeks wobble.
‘Not a good day to begin a honeymoon, I’m afraid, my dear.’ Tom pulls his collar closer to his throat and fiddles with the delicate ends of his moustache.
‘I don’t mind,’ Mary says, her fingertips brushing his knee. ‘I cannot wait for you to see Floreat. It is such a beautiful house. Do you know it means flourish?’
‘Yes, dear.’ Tom meets Liz’s gaze, raises an eyebrow. ‘You told me before.’
The carriage rumbles on. Liz rearranges her skirts, shifts her backside to try to find some feeling in it, and when she looks up, Mary’s eyes are locked in the distance. Liz cranes her neck to see; they are approaching a tiny church, surrounded by headstones and two towering yew trees. Near the entrance gate, a large tomb stands.
Mary sighs. ‘I wish they could see me now.’
‘Would you like to stop?’ Tom says.
Mary shakes her head and rests her gaze on the velvet cushion beside Liz.
As the church fades into the distance, two birds fly by the window. Liz wonders where the crows are heading and if their fate is as uncertain as hers. She looks at Tom, at his sharp cheekbones, his full lips, his hair, his eyebrows, his lashes, his moustache, all as jet and shiny as the crow’s feathers. Where is he taking her? Where is she blindly following him?
‘Are you well, sister?’ he says.
Liz rolls her shoulders back, hears the creak of her spine. ‘Just a little stiff.’
Mary grasps her arm. ‘You will have a bath tonight, Elizabeth. I have given Bet instructions to prepare one for you before the wedding dinner. I thought this cold would not suit you, you are too skinny. We must feed her up, mustn’t we, Tom?’
Liz smiles and hopes it reaches her eyes.
‘I do hope Bet has prepared some beef. And sugared plums. We must have sugared plums for our wedding night. And cake! Of course, how could I forget the cake?’
‘I’m sure Bet knows you well enough, dear. It shall all be taken care of.’
Mary giggles, a sound too infantile for a woman of her years, then she gasps.
They have reached a stone wall beset with an iron gate which has been opened for their arrival. At the end of the lengthy, gravelled path sits a grand house. Strong sunlight, rough winds, and slanting rain have carved the golden stone into a patchwork of brown and grey stains streaking from the roof and window panes. The windows are small and dark. Apexes and chimneys stretch into the sky. Liz is sure that the manor is the size of at least ten omnibuses. So big, so looming; she is sure it will eat her up.
Above the door, an archway is engraved with the word Floreat.
Mary claps her hands. ‘Home at last.’
Floreat. Mary’s childhood home, her father’s domain, is now hers.
She sees the little white fleck in the middle of the ‘o’ in the house name. She smells the peat, the muck, the sea. She is already rushing for the doorway when she realises that she has forgotten her husband.
Husband.
It is a strange word, one she thought she would never associate with herself, but now, almost into her third decade of life, she has, finally, found love.
She regards him as he dismounts from the carriage. In his wedding suit of fine black wool, silk top hat, and vivid white waistcoat, Tom is the most handsome man she has ever known.
He smiles at her and turns to help his sister. Elizabeth’s small feet kick out the hems of her emerald silk dress as she descends the carriage steps. The breeze lifts a strand of her silver-blonde hair, and she brushes it from her cheek as she beholds the house with wide eyes, the same shade of glassy green as her brother’s. She is beautiful. Too beautiful.
‘Ma’am,’ Bet coughs from behind Mary. ‘Welcome home.’
Mary smiles at her old maid, pleased to see that Bet’s usually creased face has softened at the sight of her mistress in ivory satin.
‘I have prepared tea in the drawing room, ma’am. Dinner will be served at seven.’
Mary is about to follow her maid into the house when Tom speaks.
‘Excuse me, Wife, but where do you think you are going?’
Tom leaps to her side, scoops her into his arms, and carries her over the threshold. The closeness of him, his smell of orange blossom, his whiskers that tickle her cheek as she presses against him, make her impatient for their wedding night.
With daylight almost gone, several dozen candles brandish the cavernous entrance hall in a buttery glow. Animal heads stare down at Liz from the walls amidst sooty oil paintings and gilded mirrors which multiply their reflections.
Tom places Mary on her feet. ‘Now, how about you show us around our home?’
Liz would like nothing more than to retreat to her private room. Her new shoes are too tight and she yearns to kick them off, to feel cool wood on the soles of her feet. She longs to close her eyes so that she can sink into her dreams, forget the horror of today, and imagine herself somewhere filled with sunshine. But Mary is too proud to let Liz slip away, and Liz is too polite to leave without her sister-in-law’s consent.
‘Through here is the snug.’ Mary opens the door to their left and wafts Liz and Tom inside. A musty scent permeates the room, and two well-worn and sagging armchairs sit in the middle, invitingly. ‘Daddy and I used to read in here in the wintertime before … well, before he became too ill. And through here,’ Mary continues into another room, ‘is the library proper.’
Books of all sizes, leather bound and traced with golden letters, adorn three walls. A large fireplace, made from marble, dominates the place.
‘I’m sure you will find much to occupy yourself within here, darling,’ Mary says to Tom, who peruses the shelves. ‘Come along now, you can look tomorrow. This is the music room.’
Liz hesitates. A grand piano crouches in the corner, covered with a sheet, as if in sleep. If Liz were to touch it, she is sure it would bite her.
‘Do you play, Elizabeth?’
‘Not very well.’
‘I hate the damned thing.’ Mary’s lips turn down at the edges, she shudders. ‘Many an unhappy hour I have sat trying to make sense of it. Use it if you like.’
‘I’m sure I will have no need.’ Liz skirts the edge of the room, putting distance between herself and the piano, as Mary heads into the drawing room where a monstrous fire rages. Fleshy lilies sit statuesque in ornate vases, oozing a nose-tickling stench, and a silver tea set is laid out on a mahogany table between the settees.
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