‘I hear you are leaving. Going to Venice. How nice that will be for you both.’
Liz gathers her skirts and, groaning with the effort, rises to her feet, although the ground does not feel as sturdy as the last time she stood upon it. ‘You were told to stay away, Charlotte.’
‘You cannot keep me from him.’
‘He doesn’t want you.’ How many times must the woman be told? Honestly, it is pitiful.
Charlotte casts her gaze out upon the sea. Liz can get a real look at her now. How she has changed! No one would recognise her from the beauty that she used to be.
‘I won’t let you take him from me.’ The words are so softly spoken that Liz takes a moment to understand them.
‘You lost him the first moment he saw me.’
Charlotte bares her teeth. Her black hair flies back as she lunges at Liz’s neck and tackles her to the ground. Her legs straddle Liz’s bodice as her hands tighten around Liz’s throat.
For a moment, Liz has the image of Anne in her mind again. The thick, heavy rope secure around Anne’s white neck, her red curls blowing in the breeze, her feet dangling above the ground. For a moment, Liz is just like Anne. They share the same fate. It is fitting, after all. It is justice.
The image fades, and Charlotte’s puce face comes back to the fore. Liz’s hands, which have been uselessly pulling on Charlotte’s wrists to try to free herself, now fall away. Charlotte’s strength intensifies, but Liz still has fight within her.
She remembers Tom teaching her how to punch when she was eleven years old. He had told her about a dirty trick of raising one knuckle to target the softest, weakest part of the opponent. A skill he had learnt at school, out of necessity.
With his words in her ear, she punches Charlotte, pushing her knuckle into one soft eye socket, and the woman stumbles back, screaming. The diamond ring has helped, for when Charlotte looks up, Liz can see her face is cut and bleeding.
The two of them gather themselves. Liz rolls onto her front, choking down fresh air, while Charlotte staggers to her feet, swaying with the effort.
Charlotte pants for breath. ‘I will kill you.’ Again, she lunges, but her movements are too predictable and clumsy now, and Liz dodges her as she flounders to the ground.
‘Anne should have finished you.’
‘Anne?’ Liz laughs. ‘Come Charlotte, you do not believe that Anne could have killed anyone, do you?’
Charlotte drags herself up and spits at the floor. ‘Mary.’
Liz sighs, shakes her head, looks at the blue above. It really is a beautiful day. She smiles. ‘And you always thought I was the stupid one.’
‘What do you mean?’ Realisation dawns on Charlotte’s face. ‘You poisoned Mary? You poisoned yourself? You are not capable.’
‘You have no idea what I am capable of.’
Charlotte reels, horrified. ‘Anne hanged.’
‘You helped to put the noose around her neck. I must thank you, I suppose – the blame is not all mine. Why would you care for her anyway?’ Liz steps closer to Charlotte, who steps back in turn. ‘You have never cared about what you have done to people before.’
‘You are evil.’
‘I am what you made me!’ Liz erupts. Her words bounce back at her from the cliffs just feet away. The sea crashes upon the rocks below for the tide is coming in.
Charlotte glances in the direction of Floreat. ‘Tom will know what you are.’ She picks up her skirts and begins to run, but Liz catches her hair and tugs her back.
‘You think he will care?’ she whispers into Charlotte’s ear. ‘He has seen me fuck the men you brought to me. He has seen me as nothing but skin and bone and dirt after you sent me to the workhouse. I have birthed a stranger’s child, and still, after all that, he loves me more than he’s ever loved you. Don’t you understand, Charlotte? Everything you have done to hurt us, to separate us, has only brought us together.’
‘He does not know you are a murderer.’
‘He has thought me a murderer since the day you and your house went up in flames.’
Charlotte turns to her slowly. ‘You did this to me?’
Liz holds her stare. ‘You did this to yourself.’
‘You are a devil!’
Liz nods, for Charlotte is right. She was lost to the darkness years ago.
‘You know, I almost ended it. Tom was at work. I’d been on my own for so long … The baby was all I could think about. I had a knife on my wrist.’ She recalls the whiteness of her skin, the thick blue vein pulsing, the slice which brought a pool of scarlet to the surface.
‘What stopped you?’
Liz sees the blade fall to the filthy floor of their rented room, a drop of blood splattering beside it. ‘I saw you from the window, your black shadow lurking, as always. I promised myself at that moment, I wouldn’t let you win.’
The sound of the sea roars between them. Charlotte whitens, anger flaring in her eyes as Liz smiles calmly.
‘And I kept my promise.’
Charlotte snarls, her voice thrashes out of her. ‘I will always haunt you, Lizzie! As will they. You think about them at night, don’t you?’ A smile splits her face into monstrous shadows. ‘What they did to you – what I made them do to you?’
‘Be quiet, Charlotte.’
‘And the baby.’ Charlotte puckers her lips, tuts. ‘Still, better dead than to have a mother like you.’
Liz takes it like a thump to the guts. She will not cry. She chews the side of her tongue, welcomes the pain as a distraction, but it is too late. A tear falls.
‘Did you really think getting rid of Mary and Anne would help you forget? You are cursed, Lizzie.’
Liz’s throat is strangled. She must clear it before she can speak again. ‘Perhaps.’ She snatches the tear from her cheek, lifts her chin. ‘But I will have the only thing you have ever loved.’
Liz grabs Charlotte’s blouse, and pulls hard. The material rips at the seams as Charlotte shrieks, but Liz has stable footing and rage has given her strength.
‘I will have your son.’
Liz heaves Charlotte to the cliff edge and then, with all her power, shoves Charlotte’s chest. The woman tumbles towards the sea, her skirts fluttering around her like a black butterfly, until her body breaks on the rocks below.
Liz hears nothing but the pounding of her pulse as she stares at the scene. Charlotte’s arms are at odd angles. Her gown has risen to reveal two thin legs, one broken, the white bone splintering up through a mass of red flesh. Blood oozes from her mouth, nostrils, and eyes. For a few seconds, her body twitches as the water washes over it. Then it stops and is still.
Tom finds Mrs Beacham and the twins busy preparing lunch in the kitchen as he comes through the back door. He watches them for as long as he can without being noticed. It soothes his nerves seeing a hive of women busy at work, but then Mrs Beacham discovers him and puts down her porcelain bowl. The twins, too, stop to brush their aprons clean.
‘I was hoping I could speak to all of you down here. Where are Chipman and Will?’
Mrs Beacham tells him they are polishing the silver for lunch, so Cate retrieves them. The five staff members stand formally on one side of the kitchen table with Tom on the other.
‘I just wanted to thank you all for your service. I know it hasn’t been long.’ Tom’s fingers slide through his hair. ‘Liz and I wanted you to know that we shall miss you once we have left and that we wish you all the very best for your futures.’
The speech feels inadequate. He had never had any intention of keeping the staff on for long, for he’d had no intention of staying at Floreat, but now he finds he has grown attached to them, their steadfastness and loyalty. They have never suspected him of anything.
‘It has been a pleasure, sir,’ Chipman says on behalf of the congregation and bows his head.
‘As you know, we shall be leaving tomorrow. I understand there is still much work to do, but Liz and I would like it if you would join us for drinks after dinne
r tonight.’
That cheers them slightly, and a faint murmur of excitement rumbles through the room.
‘Good.’ Tom claps his hands together. ‘I shall leave you to it and find out what Liz is doing.’ He turns his back when Will speaks.
‘She’s gone out, sir. She’s taken the pony.’
Tom pauses. Liz has not ridden for months – she has not even left the house for weeks. A feeling of dread steals over him. ‘Where was she going?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I saw them heading off towards the sea.’
‘Ready my horse, Will. I shall join her.’
He forces a smile to his lips as Chipman finds his riding boots. They are just coming around to the front of the stables when something catches Tom’s eye. The little white pony is galloping in their direction over the lawn, without a rider on her back.
‘Will! My horse!’
In a minute, Tom is cantering for the cliffs. Behind him, people are shouting, and glancing back he sees Chipman riding the white pony with Will sprinting in his wake.
The lawn merges into rolling fields as he gallops, and the sea looms ahead. Just one more gentle slope and the cliffs will be before him. He almost does not want to see what awaits him. He has images of Liz’s hands clinging to the earth, slipping out of his grasp just as he reaches her. He imagines Liz badly thrown from her pony, back broken, neck snapped. He pictures her at the bottom of the cliffs, a heap of skin and bone, blood and skirts.
He chokes on his tears as the reality of the situation reveals itself, and he finds Liz sitting on the grass, a few safe feet away from the cliff edge. He slows his horse and slides off while it is still moving.
Her eyes are wide in shock. There is a deep cut on her temple, and the blood has trickled over her face, like tree roots over the earth. Her hair has mud and grass in it and bruises form on her neck.
‘Liz,’ he whispers, gently bringing her back into consciousness. ‘It’s all right.’ He checks the hill to make sure that no one has come yet. It is clear, so he takes her delicate head in his hands and kisses her lips. ‘It’s all right, my love. I’m here. Are you hurt?’
Liz shakes her head.
‘Did you fall? What happened?’
Liz points at the sea.
He kisses her again, quickly this time for he can hear hooves and sure enough, seconds later Chipman canters towards him. ‘Chipman, have you a coat?’
Once dismounted, Chipman removes his jacket and wraps it around Liz.
Tom leaves her in Chipman’s care for a moment and walks to the cliff edge. Below him, his mother’s body sways underneath the sea’s current. He closes his eyes, remembers her as she was for a second, but that memory belongs to another boy – Thomas Jacob Carter, who disappeared a long time ago. He turns his back on her for the last time.
‘We must send for Inspector Edwards,’ Tom says, as Will staggers towards them, scarlet-faced and breathing hard. ‘That witch has tried to kill Liz.’
Inspector Edwards came as soon as he could with Doctor Kershaw in tow. He took Liz into Tom’s study and asked her about what had happened as the doctor checked her pulse and cleaned her wounds. Liz said Charlotte had scared her pony, causing her to fall and cut her head on a loose rock. Charlotte had called Liz a devil, then tried to strangle her. Liz had managed to free herself, and when the woman had lunged at her again, she had dodged out of the way, and Charlotte had fallen to her death.
Inspector Edwards apologised for what had happened, berating himself for not taking Charlotte to trial in the first place, for he thought her nothing more than a harmless fantasist. Liz assured him she did not blame him for it. She said what a pity it was that some people were so ill in the mind.
Now, dressed in her nightgown, Liz stands before the fire in her chamber. She has kissed Little Tom goodnight and left him in the safe hands of Mrs Jeffries for the last time. She revels in the thought that tomorrow night, Tom, the baby, and she, will be alone in their first-class cabin, as a proper family.
Tom enters, still dressed in his dinner suit, and yawns as he makes his way to her side. She turns her face to him and lets his lips linger on her own. How she has missed those lips!
‘Come to bed,’ he whispers as he begins to remove his clothes.
She is impatient for him too, but there is something she must do first. She pulls out a wooden box from underneath her bed. Tom watches her, amused and curious. She opens the wooden lid and lifts the doll out of its makeshift coffin, the note still in its grip.
Tom’s amusement vanishes, but she shushes his concerns. She unfolds the paper, rereads it, then throws it onto the fire. The words, he will never be yours, turn to ash in the grate.
‘What did it say?’
‘Lies.’ She smiles as Tom comes beside her, then throws the doll into the flames.
They stand together, arms wrapped around each other’s waists, Liz’s head resting on Tom’s shoulder, and watch the doll burn.
Epilogue
November 1855
On the corner of a street, a street filled with pigeon, dog, and horse dung, where the old brick walls sweat with human urine and gas leaks into the air, sits a little girl, no more than six years old.
Her green, saucer eyes reflect the leaden sky, which is barely visible between the roofs of the houses. Her milky skin is dusted with grime, and her lips part to reveal a toothy hole. Her hair is a tangle of white-blonde, like a spider’s nest wrapped around her little head and propped on top of a bony neck. Her skinny frame is hard to determine, swathed in stained blankets, with only her shabby feet poking out from underneath the fabric in worn-out, too-big shoes.
She sits, shivering, as the pure-collectors hobble past her. A dog sniffs at her, trying to determine whether she is edible, but as soon as she moves, it scampers away. She only wishes to pet it. Vermin it may be, but then, so is she.
The little girl waits alone for her mother to return, as she does every day. Her mother’s presence is fleeting.
A scabby hand comes into the child’s vision offering a lump of bread. The child grabs it, stuffs it into her parched mouth, chews as best she can, and swallows with all her might. The hand holds out a glass bottle with a clear liquid in it, and the child drinks three big gulps.
‘It’s a cold ‘un, Liz.’ The figure bends to shove the girl’s icy feet under the blanket, then moves a few nearby wooden crates in front of the child to hide her.
‘We’ll be back inside for Christmas,’ the figure whispers and leans forward to stroke the child’s head. Her cough is hard and wet, and she wipes her mouth on her sleeve.
‘A fuck for a shillin’?’ she calls into the gloom, and disappears again.
Time passes slowly, gazing between the walls and into the smoggy sky. Two nights have passed without the presence of a reassuring hand, and the little girl’s stomach cries out for her mother. Dawn breaks, and as labourers emerge from the shadows to make their way to work, her hunger forces her to look around herself and search for food.
The broken wooden crates still encircle her, giving her a layer of protection. She peers through the splintered, damp wood for anything that she could put in her mouth, but there is nothing. The alley swirls with ragged skirts and ripped trousers, and boots that slop through the slime. Bent and blind old women beg opposite her or else shuffle along with their foul-smelling buckets towards the tanning yard.
In the distance, she can see a costermonger. The thought of food sets her dry mouth running with saliva.
But she should not move. Her mother has told her to wait. Always wait until I come for you, that’s what her mother says.
There are bad people out there, Liz, and not just the ones with knives in their pockets.
But her mother has never been away for this long before. Has one of the bad people taken her? Liz has often heard women crying for their babies when they have been taken, or crying for their men, who have disappeared.
Has her mother vanished? Is she all alone in the world? And if so, d
oes she still have to stay where her mother told her to?
A bitter gust of wind slaps her left cheek and carries the salty smell of oysters into her nostrils. She pulls herself up on the wall as her legs threaten to buckle. For a moment, she cannot see; it is as if night has fallen. But slowly, her vision returns, and the glottal slang of her fellow street people fills her head as they move around her.
Her numb feet carry her closer to the cart, and she can see the pile of grey-black shells and the gleaming white flesh of the oysters. She is so close! Her stomach barks an order at her to reach up, reach for one silver shell, take it into her tiny palm, then tip it back into her mouth and swallow the sweet flesh inside.
She reaches up, her arm quivering with the effort, and she is just about to touch one when a sharp pain slices into her forehead and sends her reeling backwards into the street.
‘Piss off, you filthy cunt.’
Quickly, before any more harm can be done to her, she gets to her feet, only to fall again with the effort. As she pulls herself up once more, she notices the oyster shell just a few feet away from her, the cause of the pain in her head. She dares a look at the cart. The costermonger glares at her, threatening her with another shell in his hand. She will not get any food here.
She stumbles away. The throbbing in her head worsens as she reaches the end of the alley and emerges into a wide street. She leans on the corner of a wall and breathes until the ground steadies.
She should go back to her hiding place, but she does not want to walk past the oyster seller again. Perhaps she should just sit here and wait. But her stomach cries and she knows she must find food, somehow.
Tom grins as great lumps of meat and gravy slop about his chops. He opens his lips and sucks up the air to cool the steaming contents and soothe his red gums. He chews and chews and smiles and sucks and doesn’t bother mopping up the juices that slip down his chin.
Mr Brown tuts but can’t help smiling. He pours Tom – who reminds him of his own son before he left for the war and never came back – a small cup of ale.
Convenient Women Collection Page 39