‘I ... I can’t ...’ She shakes her head and feels mucus drip from her nose. She wipes it away, embarrassed.
‘Tell me.’ He takes hold of her arms. His hands are hot through her dress. He steps closer again so that her forehead is parallel with his neck, her lips parallel to his chest. Her breathing quickens.
Mrs Oliver has had this, she thinks. Mrs Oliver has had Tom’s bare flesh beside her, on top of her, between her. She has kissed his lips and felt his beautiful hair between her naked fingers.
Miss Oliver, too, has held him close and felt his brotherly love and protection.
And as quickly as it came, her guilt slips away.
‘I was just upset, sir,’ she says, attempting a smile. ‘I am worried about Mrs Oliver. I think she is ill.’
‘She seemed much better tonight.’ Mr Oliver’s voice is soft and low. No one can hear them.
‘I think it might be another delusion. She is too happy. Sorry, sir, I hope you don’t think me too ...’
‘Not at all. You have no need to apologise. Mary's behaviour is certainly manic. We never know where we are with her, do we?’ He sighs, and his breath blows the hair about her face. ‘You are so good with Mary. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
Her face burns. He raises his fingers to stroke her fiery cheek.
He wants me, she suddenly thinks, and the air is snatched from her lungs. All this time, and she was right! He has given her special treatment. He has trusted her above all others.
She can do nothing but feel his fingertips on her skin, as his eyes shine down upon her.
‘You know,’ he whispers, his lips just inches away from hers, ‘I think you are right about Mary. And, when the time comes, you must state all of your fears, all of your concerns, to the doctor. It is the only way she will get the help she needs.’
There it is! The glint in his eye, the emphasis in his words – he wants his wife gone too! And still, his fingers linger on Anne’s jawline.
‘You must tell the doctor of the madness you have heard from Mary’s lips. You must tell him how you fear for the safety of Little Tom. You wouldn’t want any harm to come to him, would you?’
‘No! I love him.’ And she loves Mr Oliver too, but the words do not need to be spoken; they both understand her infatuation.
He smiles, and his thumb rolls down her neck. She dares not breathe. What would happen, she wonders, if Mrs Oliver were already gone? Would Mr Oliver’s hands journey on? Would his lips meet hers?
‘Then I need you to help me.’
She watches his lips form the words, and she nods. She has known all along that he has needed her, that the witch was wrong to say he did not love her.
‘I know I can rely on you.’ He kisses her forehead, and it is like his lips have branded her. ‘No more tears, eh? I do not like to see you upset.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she whispers.
‘That’s better.’
He pats her arms, then the heat of him disappears as he steps back. The loss of him is overwhelming. Her fingers flutter, trying to reach for him, but she forces them to her side. He is only biding his time, she tells herself.
And so must she.
‘Goodnight, sir.’
He opens the door for her, but does not step back to let her through easily. She must squeeze between him and the doorframe, and as she pushes past him, he breathes, ‘sleep well, Anne.’
Chapter 12
March 1870
She can see her bones now. She looks in the mirror and runs her fingers over her ribs. She never thought she would see her skin so taught, so transparent, as if the blood has been drained from her.
The thought of blood makes the saliva dribble from her mouth. Mary does not bother to reach for the bowl. Instead, she leaves a trail of vomit on her rug. Anne will have to clean it later.
She returns to her bed, which is damp and sour. Her skin screams as she crawls between the sheets. She lays her head on the pillow, and winces as her skull hits rock. Her stomach simmers, she clenches, then wrenches her legs out of bed once more and lunges for the pot, making it just in time.
It is the child making her like this. Her mother was right. He has come to kill her. His gummy grins and silly giggles sent poison out on the air, reeled her in, brought her closer to her doom. It was mere days after falling for him that she noticed a dizziness in her head, a creeping nausea in her stomach, the taste of blood in her mouth, though no wound could be found.
He will kill her if she lets him.
Her door creaks open. She curls into a ball and shrinks away from the light from the hallway. Anne comes to her and groans in disgust as she steps into Mary’s vomit.
‘I left the bowl here for you.’
The chill porcelain is pressed against Mary’s arm. Mary slaps it away, making Anne drop the thing so that it shatters on the floor.
‘Stupid bitch,’ Mary says, though the words are lost in the chattering of her teeth.
‘You haven’t eaten your soup.’
‘Don’t want it.’
‘You need to eat. You are nothing more than a skeleton.’
Mary grabs the girl’s arm and pulls it before her. She scrapes her brittle fingernails across the top of the girl’s hand until the skin peels back and blood seeps through. But Mary’s strength is short lived. She has no stamina anymore.
‘You are poisoning me.’
Anne pulls her hand free and sucks the wound, then disappears from the side of the bed. For a while, she is lost to Mary, but then she returns, and Mary can just make out the white cup she holds.
‘Drink your tea, Mary.’
Mary burrows further down into her bed, but Anne drags the covers away.
‘You must take your medicine.’
‘Get away!’ Mary pulls herself off the bed and falls onto the floor.
Anne is upon her in a moment, crushing her. The pain of skin against skin! The agony as Anne’s weight bears down on her! She screams, and with her mouth open, Anne pours the cold tea inside her. She chokes, and the drink splutters out of her nose, stinging her raw flesh as it does so. She must swallow or drown. So she swallows, cringes at the bitterness, and crunches on some grains which litter her tongue, as hard as egg shells.
‘Good.’ Anne gets to her feet, sighs, and walks away.
‘You ... you are evil.’ Mary cowers on the floor beside her bed, feels death swimming down her throat.
Anne rolls her eyes before she leaves the room.
Mary stumbles to the door and locks it. She is safe. Now, no one can enter and drip poison into her mouth as she sleeps. No one can cut her feet so that the blood drains out of her.
She is so tired, so very, very tired. Her eyes are like boules rolling in dry earth. She rubs them, but then stops, imagining they may fall from their sockets if disturbed too much.
She curls onto her bed. She hopes that sleep will take her quickly, so the pain may be relieved. She hopes that she will have dreams instead of nightmares. She hopes that when she wakes, she will rise with ease and eat something.
The thought of food makes her stomach growl. A memory flashes in her mind, the memory of the night her virginity was taken from her, the night when Tom’s body thrust against her and the seed of evil was spent inside her. The night when all of this began.
But the memory does not last long. The laudanum has found its way to her bloodstream. Her limbs float away from her body and dance in the air. She watches her feet tap, her legs and arms sway on the breeze, her torso twist to an unheard tune. The rhythms ease her mind until the fog descends, and she sleeps.
Anne has watched the sun set through the little cottage window until there is nothing but a black expanse dotted with diamonds of white stars.
Her mother is talking too much about nothing in particular while Anne nibbles at a leftover slice of cake from Paul’s birthday. Paul has been wittering on about how he can scare crows with a single stare – he is convinced he has some godly power over the creatures
. Mother tells him to be quiet about such superstitious nonsense.
She is eager to leave, for the conversation is dull, and Eddie and Paul’s constant bickering is grinding on her nerves. She waits until the clock strikes seven, then makes her excuses.
Outside, she slips into her father’s shed and, with her lamp, finds the arsenic. She refills her bottle with the fine powder and slips out into the night, over the heathland, towards Floreat.
The witch is in her usual place between a high clump of gorse and a glassy pool of stagnant water.
‘Mary is mad.’ Anne says before the witch has time to ask her usual questions. ‘Elizabeth is ill. Tom is anxious.’
‘How ill?’
‘Elizabeth? Sickness, same as Mary. She’s stayed in her bed these last few days.’
‘Is it serious?’
Anne recalls Elizabeth’s damp, grey skin, the way her teeth chattered, the foulness in the pot. ‘I’m not sure.’
The witch sighs and shakes her head. ‘Do you know anything? The baby is not ill, too?’
‘Oh, no. He’s very well. He gets stronger by the day.’
‘And Tom?’
Anne cannot help the smile that steals over her face. ‘He is in love with me.’
The witch waves her gloved hand across the air, tuts. ‘Is he well? He has not fallen sick also?’
‘No, he’s fine.’
‘And what does he plan to do about Mary?’
‘He has found another doctor. A better one from Exeter. He says I must tell him how wicked she is to me.’
‘And you are not wicked back?’ The witch grins. ‘You hope she will be taken away?’
‘She is mad.’
‘So you say.’
Anne kicks at the gorse bush and ruffles some animal that has taken shelter there. She hears the scurry of tiny feet as it runs away from her. ‘I still have those damned mice. Just can’t get rid of them. And I need more of the potion.’
‘I have none left.’
‘You must.’ Anne’s pulse is fast. ‘I need it.’ She has been slipping it into Tom’s whiskey for weeks, and he has been growing closer to her by the day. She is sure he will not be able to control himself for much longer.
‘I don’t have any.’ The witch walks away.
Anne has only drops of the potion left. She cannot lose Tom now, when she is so close to having all of him!
‘I’ll tell them if you don’t give it to me.’
The witch stops.
‘I’ll tell them that you’re spying on them. I’ll tell them it was you who planted the doll. Miss Oliver hasn’t been right since then. What did it mean to her?’
The witch does not respond.
‘I’ll tell them that you’re living in the woods. You didn’t know I knew that, did you?’
The witch turns on her. Anne’s bluster blows away.
‘You tell them, my dear.’ The witch approaches Anne and caresses her face. ‘You tell them all about me. What do you think they will do? They may hunt me down. I can go somewhere else – I move with the wind and the moon. But what do you think they will do to you? You have been meeting with me for months. It is you who planted the doll, not me. It is you who will have nowhere to go, no money to your name … a fallen woman.’
‘Tom wouldn’t let that happen.’
‘So he knows that you meet with me? He knows what you have done to Liz? He knows about the potion you have been giving him?’
Of course, he does not. Anne’s fear must show in her face, and she tries to move away, but the witch grabs her loose hair and jerks her close enough so that Anne can smell the hag’s rancid breath as she speaks.
‘Do not threaten me, girl.’
Anne quakes, but dares not struggle.
‘We can help each other, you and me. We want the same thing.’ The witch drops Anne and retrieves a small bottle from somewhere inside her skirts. ‘This is all I have left.’
Like a puppy, Anne waits for the potion to be transferred into her own bottle. ‘Thank you.’
‘You say Lizzie has been ... out of sorts. Where is the doll now?’
‘I don’t know. I never saw it again after that night.’
The witch smirks then vanishes into the blackness.
Anne strides through the back door of Floreat. She is keen to get to her room and smarten herself up in time to see to Mary and, then, after her goodnight kiss from Tom, she will go to the study and slip a few more drops of the potion into the full bottles of whiskey there. She is on the stairs when Will stops her.
‘Had a nice night?’
‘Yes.’ Anne continues up the stairs, but Will clutches at her through the banister. She tugs her hand away.
‘Sorry, just ... come down here for a minute, will you?’
Groaning and hiding her potion, she follows Will as he leads her into the kitchen. The place is unusually empty.
‘Sit down.’ Will gestures at the bench. ‘How’s your ma and da?’
‘They’re fine. What do you want, Will?’
Despite the coolness, Will’s forehead has a sheen to it. Anne imagines it would be slippery if she put her fingers to it.
‘I ... I was thinking.’ He licks his thin lips. ‘I am very fond of you, Anne, as I think you know. And I was thinking that we may start walking out together and that you might ... consider me ... that you might accept me ... that you might be my wife?’
He is met with silence. Anne does not know if she has heard him correctly, but his fiddling and his sweating indicate that he might, indeed, be asking her to marry him.
‘No.’
His big brown eyes stare at her.
‘No, Will. I will not be your wife. As I have said before, I am a lady’s maid, and you are a hall boy.’
‘I’m not. I’m not a hall boy anymore. Mr Oliver has promoted me. I’m a footman now.’
Why did Tom have to do that? Now she has no excuse. The truth must suffice. ‘I said no, Will. I do not love you.’
‘You could. Remember when we were little? We’d pretend to be husband and wife –’
‘We were children.’
‘You felt something for me then. You could feel something for me now ... in time, at least. Lots of marriages start like that. They grow into love. You could love me in time.’
‘I could not love you, Will.’ Anne stands to get away from his clutching hands, but he follows her; it is like they are playing a game of cat and mouse around the kitchen table. ‘I said no.’
‘Please, Anne, just walk with me.’
‘No.’
‘I love you, Anne.’
‘And I love someone else!’
Will stops. Anne catches her breath. They are standing at opposite ends of the table in the dim light of the moon.
‘Who?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Will.’ Her warning tone quietens him.
He looks to his feet. His lips are even thinner now and have begun to wobble. She would not have the embarrassment of seeing him cry.
‘Goodnight, Will.’
Doctor Kershaw is a rotund man who wears spectacles. His belly precedes him, and Tom likes the way the middle-aged man smiles, oblivious of Tom’s history.
Doctor Jameson, on the other hand, is not enamoured with his peer, or rather, rival. How Tom had to stifle his sniggers as the waspy old crone dismounted from his horse beside an elegant Exeter carriage, his face puzzled, his frown deep. The introduction has been nothing less than glacial.
‘On matters so delicate and so important, I feel it only right that I should seek a second medical opinion. I believe it is the scientific way?’ Tom says.
‘Quite right, Mr Oliver. We understand, don’t we, Doctor Jameson? We are men of science, after all.’
Tom indicates that they should make their way upstairs. He lets Doctor Kershaw into Mary’s room while he remains on the landing with Anne and Jameson.
‘I know what you are doing, Mr Oliver,
’ Jameson says while fiddling with his pocket watch.
Tom is acutely aware of Anne’s gaze; he feels like a prize bull at an auction. Every now and again he looks back at her, sometimes grave and solemn, sometimes exasperated, sometimes he even gives her a little wink when he is sure Jameson is not looking. She likes that.
Finally, Doctor Kershaw returns, and Tom allows Jameson to see to Mary. Once Jameson has gone, Doctor Kershaw begins.
‘Your wife is terribly ill, sir.’ He dabs the sweat from his face with a clean handkerchief. ‘I have to say,’ he continues in hushed tones, ‘I think it is appalling that you have had to endure this. She should have been hospitalised weeks ago, looking at the state of her.’
‘Jameson has known her since childhood. I thought he would know what was best for her, but ...’
Kershaw touches Tom’s arm in a small gesture of condolence.
‘I should also like you to see Anne here. She is Mary’s lady’s maid. I’m afraid she’s not had a very good time of it of late, have you, Anne?’
Anne’s head is dipped low. Her hands are held neatly together, though they shake. She is on the brink of tears when she looks up. She plays her part well.
‘Show the doctor what Mary has done to you.’
Anne removes her gloves so that Kershaw may inspect the deep gouges on the thin, pale flesh of her hand that are forming thick crusts of scabs. She undoes the first two buttons on her blouse to reveal a floret of dark purple bruising on her neck and jawline where Mary struck her with a cold fire-iron over a week ago.
‘She’s taken whole clumps of my hair out, sir. She’s thrown things at me. I’ve had glass stuck in my skin from where it’s shattered against me.’
Kershaw takes her hand to examine the wound, then gently tilts her head so he may see her bruises. ‘You shall heal, but what a dreadful ordeal for you.’
Anne’s tears trail down her cheeks. ‘She talks so badly of the baby, sir. She talks about killing him! I am scared of her, sir.’
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