Pauper's Child

by Meg Hutchinson

  Not this way! Her hand already reaching for the heavy door that was the main entrance to the house, Sabine halted. No servant would ever be seen entering or leaving by a front door. She must be careful, keep her mind on what she was doing; a slip such as she had almost made would bring attention. Crossing the wide hall she entered the kitchen. Something was not right! A niggle of doubt edged into her brain. What had she forgotten, what had she overlooked? Behind the veil her eyes probed shelves and dresser then, coming to the cooking range, took on a satisfied gleam. The coat she was wearing, the boots, they were too clean, too obviously rarely worn; a woman who was poverty stricken, who wore the same clothes day after day, was the picture she wanted to present, a figure who would command no second look in a town rife with poverty and stained with labour.

  Fetching a cloth from the adjoining scullery she dipped it in the ash of the fire then smeared several streaks down the skirt of her coat before rubbing it over her hands. Next she stubbed first one foot and then the other into the hearth, rubbing their sides well into the gritty residue of burned coal, breathing satisfaction at the way a film of the disturbed ash settled along the hem of her coat. Now she had overlooked nothing.

  She must not take a hansom. Head slightly lowered, Sabine passed along the streets. Nor could she ride on the steam tram. Women such as she aimed to pass for wouldn’t spend money on riding when they could walk, and walking would give her time to go over what she had planned. It had not been difficult to find out where Jason Sanford’s daughter was living; Phineas Westley had talked to Edwin when selling him that statuette of a reclining woman, had said it had been made at the pottery belonging to Daniel Roberts along of Lea Brook.

  She had somehow got herself installed there, that had been easy to deduce, but how long would she remain there? That was not so simple to surmise and to fail now, to break the promise she had made to Julia, sweet darling Julia, her beloved sister… Sabine’s long fingers closed tighter around the handles of the cloth bag. She must not fail, she would not fail!

  *

  She had gone over everything again, she had made doubly sure that all was in its place. Daniel would be happy with the workshop. Running one last glance over shelves and workbench, seeing the throwing wheel and small array of potter’s tools clean and free of any trace of clay, Callista smiled satisfaction. She had cared for the workshop as she cared for the cottage; Abigail and Daniel would approve. If only she had a way of telling them what Phineas Westley hoped, that Wedgbury Ware would once more be produced at its age old home, if—

  A sound at her back ending the thought she turned, breath catching in her throat as the workshop door closed behind a black draped figure.

  ‘I have waited so long…’

  The words seemed to hiss across the shadowed workshop.

  ‘So very long. But it was not an onerous wait, it was enjoyable; all those years, all those long pleasurable days of knowing how you suffered.’

  The woman had obviously made a mistake; her clothes said she was a widow; perhaps grief had caused her to lose her way.

  ‘I think you mistake me for someone else,’ Callista said gently. ‘And perhaps you are looking for some other place. This is Leabrook Pottery.’

  Like stones thrown against a wall the answer hurled itself at Callista.

  ‘I know where I am and no I have made no mistake… it is you I came to see, you I came to kill!’

  Kill! Callista’s nerves vaulted. Whatever had happened to this woman had her seriously disturbed. Realising that to try running past and out into the yard might add to the woman’s mental suffering, she tried to keep her own voice steady.

  ‘Why would you want to kill me? I don’t even know you.’

  ‘Oh, you know me. You know me very well!’ Her raucous laugh accompanying the words Sabine threw back the veil. ‘There,’ she snapped, ‘didn’t I say you knew me?’

  ‘Mrs Derry!’ Callista stared at a face distorted by hatred. ‘I… I don’t understand. What have I done to make you wish to kill me?’

  Lips drawing back in a snarl, eyes glittering like grey ice, Sabine’s answer hissed from the shadowed doorway.

  ‘You were born… you were the spawn of his evil.’

  The spawn of his evil.

  Callista’s brain rocked. They were the words of her nightmare, but how did this woman know them?

  ‘You,’ it continued, spitting like cobra venom, ‘you were the result of his unfaithfulness, you the reason he left, but I saw him, I saw him and I knew…’

  They were the words which came in the night… the same which had her wake in fear, fear she had known in childhood! A trickle of cold ran along Callista’s spine.

  ‘Please…’

  ‘No!’ A long boned hand rose, the shriek that was denial drowning Callista’s attempt to speak. ‘Did he give the chance of saying please? Did he listen to any plea? No he did not. Like a thief in the night he left, no explanation, no apology, no care for the heart he broke… and why did he do so? It was because of her… her and you, the spawn of his evil.’

  Every word was the same: a carbon copy of those which she heard in her nightmare! Watching the woman glaring at her, loathing blazing with the cold flames of madness in unblinking eyes, Callista felt the trickle of fear which had run along her spine flare along every vein. But Sabine Derry had never heard them… how then could she repeat them verbatim?

  ‘I promised… I promised I would take revenge and I did, a long sweet revenge.’

  Fright real as ever it had been on waking from the horror of that recurring dream held Callista’s body rigid, the hate in those crazed eyes snaring her senses until it was an effort to force words past her throat; but somehow they came.

  ‘You… you promised revenge, but on whom?’

  ‘On him! On him who took my beloved from me… but not only him.’ Sabine laughed, a high hysterical laugh. ‘No, not only on him, that would not be enough, those he loved must die too.’

  She had thought this to be a woman mistaken in her grief, one who had misjudged her direction in the unhappiness of losing a loved one. But beneath the hysteria Callista discerned a woman of purpose, one who knew exactly what she was about. Praying her nerve would hold she said quietly, ‘Perhaps we could go to the house, talk over a cup of tea.’

  A dry rasping cackle erupted from across the room. ‘Sly as ever, sly as the child I tormented, yes… yes it was me, I was the teacher who made your young life miserable; look… look and tell me you remember!’ Snatching bonnet and veil from her head and flinging them aside Sabine hesitated, then with a serpentine smile stretching her mouth, she lifted away the wig.

  ‘Ah,’ she breathed as Callista’s eyes widened, ‘I see you do remember.’

  Suddenly Callista was back in the classroom, her lips trembling, her throat locked with fear, her hand rising to ward off a blow from a long fingered hand. ‘Miss Montroy…’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, Miss Montroy.’ Letting the wig fall alongside the bonnet and veil Sabine took a step forwards, a look of fiendish delight playing over her hard features. ‘You never guessed, never suspected Sabine Derry was the teacher you were so afraid of. Oh, I relished that fear, relished it as I did that of Jason Sanford. His wife did not know, she thought it was the unhappiness of losing those teaching posts, of being forced to work in a steel foundry, but she was wrong, it was me. I brought her husband to the brink of despair, I drove him until he took his own life.’

  What was she saying? What had she to do with her father’s death?

  As if reading the questions reeling in Callista’s mind, Sabine laughed. ‘You didn’t know, they didn’t tell you, didn’t tell their darling she was the fruit of his infidelity, the reason for breaking the promise he made to Julia. A promise he broke when he met that strumpet, the whore who made him forego the pledge of marriage he made to my sister. But I made him pay, I caused him to commit suicide as he caused Julia to do. I never told him, I kept it secret…’

  The laugh which
had been shrill and manic dropped to a secretive giggle.

  ‘Julia forgave him but I never told him so, I made him think he caused her suicide, that Julia died sooner than face up to the shame of being left in the lurch; each time he secured a post I wrote to the Board of Governors saying I would reveal to the newspapers they were exposing children to the influence of a killer. That was all it took, a few words written on paper and he was dismissed. Then he got work in an iron foundry… he thought that would satisfy me.’ She giggled again, her grey serpentine eyes glistening. ‘But the clever Jason Sanford was wrong, I told him I would shame his wife before the whole town, tell how she had used her body to entice him away from Julia…’

  … a few words written on paper…

  The words burned through the horror of the rest. This woman had driven her father to his death, had simply blackmailed him into ending his life! ‘But he could not have killed her, my father could never kill anyone!’

  Callista did not realise she had whispered the last aloud but the insane gleam in the eyes that watched her, the demented giggle curdling in Sabine Derry’s throat, said it had been heard.

  ‘Not Jason… he did not help… it was me… I helped my darling.’ Suddenly, with the swiftness of a lightning flash, the gleam of madness was gone and the voice which continued was steady. ‘I could not see my sister laughed at behind her back, see the finger of ridicule pointed in her direction, so I had her poisoned, and when she was dead I hung her body from the bedpost, then I wrote the letter which made her death look like suicide.’

  ‘Why?’ Callista gasped her revulsion.

  ‘Why?’ Sabine’s mouth twisted, the hate inside her a torch on her tongue. ‘Because he took her from me! Took the love that was mine and that I could not allow; Julia was mine, she could only be mine, her lovely body must never be touched by any hands but mine. I was her lover and that was how it must always be.’

  She had been her own sister’s lover! Callista felt a sickness rise in her throat. A sister she had murdered!

  ‘I could not risk her turning away from me.’ Sabine’s voice fell, the soft words seeming to be said only for herself. ‘Julia had known the kiss of one man; maybe it was a kiss she would prefer to mine, a kiss she would look for elsewhere, maybe in a husband. I could take no chance of that happening so I killed her. Then I killed the man who had spoiled my life. Jason Sanford paid for what he had done to me and so did his whore of a wife and the child their evil produced. I tormented you, made three years of your life a misery, before Miss Montroy left that school. But I did not forget and when I returned to Wednesbury I took up the task again. Oh, it gave me so much pleasure watching your mother slowly die…’

  A frown appearing between her brows Sabine paused, peering enquiringly through the gloom of the workshop before asking, ‘Did you not wonder why things always went so badly for you until in the end you were not even given a job scrubbing floors? It was all so simple. A word from Sabine Derry’s housekeeper saying her mistress would not take supplies from any tradesman who employed or dealt in any way with the Sanford woman or her daughter was all it took.’

  ‘You did that!’ Callista stared in horror. ‘You let my mother die!’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Sabine nodded, her answer almost nonchalant. ‘She had to, you see I had to be certain she would not speak to anyone of my sister, of your father breaking off his engagement to her; that is also the reason for my killing dear Emma and the odious Mr Slade and why I must now kill you.’

  She was mad, the woman was out of her mind! She had murdered three people and been instrumental in the deaths of two others; now she was bent on taking another life. Callista’s brain reeled under what it had learned. Sabine Derry was here to kill her!

  The realisation could have sent her brain spinning into a frenzy but instead it had an instantly calming effect. Drawing a long breath Callista summed up her position. The woman was insane; there was no doubt she counted the daughter of Jason Sanford not only in part responsible for her sister’s death but saw her as a dangerous threat to Sabine Derry’s future. She would kill, there was no question about that… but the door was only yards away. If she could draw the woman from it there was a chance she could reach it and once outside…

  Intuition or the sixth sense born of madness seeming to tell her what was forming in Callista’s mind, Sabine snatched a heavy plaster mould from the workbench and, the shrill scream of lunacy ripping from her throat, hurled it at Callista.

  32

  ‘It will be as it was before my dearest… before he came.’

  The voice came from the darkness, a soft soothing whisper brushing against the pain throbbing in her head.

  ‘We will go back home, back to our secret place in the woods, spend the afternoons in each other’s arms, love each other as only we know how… oh, my dear love, we will be so happy…’

  Deep in the darkness of a pain filled world Callista listened to the soft voice, her mind reaching for its comfort. Her mother was murmuring to her, they would go home… they would be happy.

  ‘We will be together, no one else will share you, you will be mine again, only mine, and in the hours of night we will delight in each other’s body…’

  They would go home, her mother was telling her they would go home. But that was wrong? Callista moaned, struggling with the conflict between what her ears heard and what her brain was saying.

  ‘Hush, my darling, you are safe now.’

  The whisper answering the moan was gentle as the hand caressing her breast and for a moment Callista gave herself to it. The darkness was warm and pleasurable and her mother’s voice… but her mother was dead! The thought was a blow, a weapon which smashed her dark world, flooding it with the light of reality. Her mother could not be speaking to her, and the hand fondling her body… her mother would never touch her like that. Her eyes, flying open, met the deranged gleam in those of Sabine Derry.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Heedless of the ache pulsing in her head Callista tried to hurl herself from the woman bending now to kiss her breast, but a snatch at her throat had her gasp with pain. There was something around her neck, something which had pressed chokingly when she moved… and her hands… Callista’s mind screamed in terror. Her hands were bound, tied at the wrists and secured behind her back.

  Everything that had happened before she had awakened in a world of darkness rushed into her mind, remembered words falling into and over each other, finishing with ‘why I must now kill you’.

  She had thought to run but Sabine Derry had seemed to sense the thought and had hurled a plaster mould which must have knocked her unconscious. Now she was tied and helpless.

  The woman’s hand was stroking her legs, the mouth was touching her breast; Callista shuddered. She was at the mercy of a woman whose mind was deranged, a lunatic who believed she was her sister, a woman who had unbuttoned her blouse and chemise, lifted her skirts.

  ‘Please!’ The cry choked from her. ‘Mrs Derry, I am not your sister; please, you have made a mistake I… I am Callista Sanford, I am Jason Sanford’s daughter.’

  Sabine Derry’s head lifted and in the shadowed light Callista caught the glitter of eyes lost in madness. ‘Jason.’ The laugh was low, a cunning machiavellian sound grating in the throat. ‘The so handsome Jason. He thought to rob me, to steal that which was mine, but he didn’t succeed…’ She laughed again, the harsh screech of mania echoing around the walls of the workshop, sounding a chorus of frenzied lunacy. ‘He didn’t succeed but I did. I did… I was more clever than him, I killed him, I killed them all. I did it to protect you, my dearest, to save you from scandal, and now I will protect you again, help you as I helped you that other time except I did not bring chocolates. Poison would take too long, but I have the rope. I tore the cloth I placed in my bag, knotted the strips together, they are strong enough to bear your weight. Do not be afraid, Julia…’

  Mousy hair trailing behind the lips tracing a line of kisses along her neck and across her breasts b
rought a wave of revulsion shuddering along Callista’s body but as she tried to twist away from it the cloth around her neck bit deep against her throat. Snared in her own world of delusion, Sabine Derry paid it no heed.

  ‘Do not be afraid,’ she went on, her wild laugh ringing whenever she lifted her mouth from the trembling body, ‘I am taking you home, home to the delectable joy, the ecstatic pleasure of our lovemaking, of—’

  ‘Miss Sanford!’

  A shout from outside had the crazed laughter die on Sabine’s lips, the snarl of a cornered animal taking its place.

  ‘Miss Sanford!’

  The second shout had barely ended before Callista screamed. Whoever was in the yard let them hear her… please God, let them hear! Drawing breath to scream again the air choked in her throat as the cloth rope jerked taut.

  But her one scream had been enough, the door burst open, crashing on its hinges.

  ‘What in God’s name…!’ Michael Farron stared at a black garbed figure bent over the body of another.

  ‘Go away!’ Sabine’s eyes glittered, the face she turned towards the doorway distorted with hate and rage. ‘You can’t have her, Jason Sanford, she’s mine…’

  Gasping against the stricture of the cloth circling her neck, Callista tried calling but Sabine’s shoulder pressed deliberately down on her chest.

  ‘What the hell are you up to, woman?’ Michael Farron took a stride forwards. ‘I’m not Jason Sanford.’

  Completely taken by the insanity which clouded her mind Sabine hissed between clenched teeth. ‘You shan’t have her, Julia is mine, she is my love… you killed her, Jason Sanford, you killed my darling Julia… but I will help her, help her like I did before.’

  Moving with a speed that took Michael unawares, Sabine was on her feet, the hand which held the end of the cloth rope flinging it up and over a beam that was part of the roof, then, a maniacal laugh bursting from her, she pulled at it with all her might.

  Dragged upwards, the rope biting savagely into her neck, Callista felt the world sway and twist; the breath choked from her as she heard a shout from a universe away, then a chasm, black and bottomless, opened beneath her.