The Woman From Heartbreak House

by Freda Lightfoot

  On one occasion she’d asked for simple bread and cheese instead of the revolting slops. She’d been given it too, except that the bread had been mouldy and the cheese alive with maggots. She’d objected, naturally, refusing even to touch it.

  Two hulking great nurses, although warders would be a better description, had borne down upon her, strapped her in a strait-jacket and tied her to her bed for thirty-six hours. During those long, dark hours, in which she’d wet herself like a baby, Kate had learned what it was to be truly afraid.

  And she’d still had to eat the bread and cheese.

  The two warders had stood over her while she ate every scrap, mould, maggots, and all.

  Now, generally speaking, she complied, following every order to the letter, eating whatever was put in front of her without complaint. Life was simpler that way, and a part of her clung to the hope that compliance on her part would win freedom in the end.

  Peggy was much more volatile, and fiercely protective of her new friend. ‘Here, lay off her,’ she said now. ‘Who would want to eat this pig-swill, anyroad?’ And turning her own plate upside down, she let the contents fall with a sickening plop on to the floor.

  Three of Peggy’s babies had died mysterious deaths, simply stopped breathing in their cot, and she’d been held responsible. She swore her innocence over the loss, but no one believed her. After five years at the castle, was it any wonder if she sometimes lost her reason? ‘It’s only fit for cockroaches,’ she screamed now. ‘Which is what you lot are, bloody cockroaches! So get down on yer hands and flamin’ knees and you eat it, lick it all up, if it’s so bleeding good!’

  It was as if a switch had been flicked, or a gate opened. Pandemonium broke out as several of the other patients on nearby tables started throwing their food on to the floor too, stamping on it and screaming with laughter, calling the nurses cockroaches, rats, and other abusive names.

  The rebellion spread like wildfire across the room. Spoons were hammered on tables, plates smashed to the floor, one woman even climbed on a table and began to strip off her clothes and dance. Warders rushed around beating patients about the head with wet towels in order to silence them, until relative calm was again restored and everyone was seated once more, cowering and subdued.

  Two warders bore down on Peggy, man-handled her into the all-too-familiar strait-jacket and marched her away.

  Kate desperately tried to stop them. ‘Don’t do that! It’s not her fault. I was the one who refused to eat the stuff, not Peggy.’

  Even as she protested, she knew her pleas were useless.

  ‘If you were the one who started this, 172, then let’s see if a night or two in isolation will sharpen your appetite. I know a nice little padded cell just built for trouble-makers like you.’

  After two cups of strong tea and several of Mrs Petty’s home-made shortbread biscuits, Ida glanced up at the clock ticking loudly on the kitchen wall. ‘Shall I start squeezing the lemons, Mrs P? For the lemon meringue?’

  Mrs Petty came to with a jerk. ‘Aye, lass, you do that. Squeeze every last drop out of them and pretend it’s that madam’s blood, why don’t you?’

  The caterwauling from the front of the house seemed to have increased in volume as they got back to work, and the pair of them winced. ‘I prefer a nice Strauss waltz meself, not this banging and jumping about, this Black Bottom and Charleston. Disgusting, if you ask me. What happened to dignity, that’s what I’d like to know? Shaking yer nether regions at a chap. Immoral!’

  Ida stifled a giggle. She rather liked a bit of jazz herself, and had often peeped in at the goings-on in the drawing room through a crack in the door to watch the dancing. It all looked exciting, really good fun. ‘I see what you mean, Mrs P,’ she politely agreed, remembering how old her friend was.

  Mrs Petty was indeed feeling her age. She was worn out by the endless cooking, the arguments over menus, the complaints if something didn’t turn out quite right.

  ‘You’d think I’d nowt else to do in life but stuff mushrooms. What’s wrong with a nice Irish stew, I told her, with plum pudding to follow? But no, that’s only good enough for the likes of us. The peasants! Her fancy friends must have quail’s eggs, turbot, pigeon pie, and pheasant stuffed with truffles. Followed, of course, by a most succulent array of peaches, plums, raspberries and strawberries, for all they’re not in season half the time, and enough meringues, jellies, trifles, sorbets and tarts to make even a bishop sick, and they’re known for rich living, they are. My fingers are worn to the bone wi’ kneading and beating, stirring and whisking.

  ‘And where does she find the money, that’s what I want to know? Bread has gone up to one shilling and fourpence, would you believe? And milk is elevenpence a quart. I don’t want to buy the blasted cow, I told the milkman. What a cheek! Where will we all end up, I ask meself?’

  Ida sniffed sympathetically, having heard it all before. ‘You should’ve seen the state of the blue bedroom last weekend. Vomit everywhere. Turned my stomach it did. I should be paid extra for cleaning it up, I should really.’

  ‘We should both go on strike, lass, same as the miners. Twelve days they were out and succeeded in getting a bit of a pay rise. Happen we should try it.’

  ‘Aye, but the miners aren’t up against Madam Lucy, are they?’

  ‘No, Ida, you’re right there.’ Mrs Petty let out a heavy sigh. ‘In the meantime, beat me a dozen eggs, lass. Modom wants proper custard with the pear tart at her soirée this evening. I’ll give her “proper custard”, as if I’d make any other sort!’

  ‘And there’s to be another house party this weekend an’ all,’ Ida added, eyes wide with outrage. ‘I heard her on the telephone this morning, ringing up that Teddy bloke and various others of her friends. Dahling, do come. It’ll be such fun! Ida imitated, making Mrs Petty chortle with delight.

  ‘Aye, and where does that madam sleep at these weekend do’s, that’s what I’d like to know? Different chap every night, I’d say. She’s certainly not where she should be come morning, I’ll tell you that for nowt.’

  ‘Yer right there, Mrs P,’ agreed Ida. ‘I never know where to take her breakfast tray.’

  ‘Well, I know what I’d like to put in her scrambled eggs, a few of my choice “mushrooms”, carefully selected and finely chopped. That’d fettle her nicely, that would.’

  Ida’s eyes rounded with fright and her jaw fell open, revealing all the blackened stumps of her teeth. ‘Nay, you’d not poison her!’

  ‘There have been times when I’ve been sorely tempted to give her the same treatment she meted out to our little Flora with such callousness. Madam Lucy ain’t no innocent. She’s a wicked woman who deserves to be boiled in oil or flayed alive for the damage she’s done to this family. And I hope I’m around to watch when she gets her comeuppance. By heck, but it’ll end in tears. Mark my words, it’ll all end in tears. Eeh, Kate love, come home quick. We need you.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Callum had done everything he could think of to discover where his mother was being held, and failed utterly. The most he’d learned was from that chap who’d diddled him and beaten him up, shouting summat about her being in a Scottish castle. So far as Callum was aware there were any number of the damn things, so how could he possibly find out which was the right one, even if he possessed the transport and the funds to go and look?

  He felt such a fool, such a complete failure.

  Lucy was being obstinately reticent on the subject, admitting only that the castle was in the borders and insisting Kate still needed time to recover. The very idea that his mother, who had endured so much and always showed such fighting spirit, would suddenly take it into her head to end it all, was quite beyond his ken. Callum did not believe it.

  Nor did Toby Lynch, and the pair of them would often discuss their concern over a pint, or in snatched conversations at the factory.

  Only this morning, as Callum had been eating his sandwiches in his dinner break down by the river, Toby had
joined him. Even though he was Callum’s boss, and strictly speaking they shouldn’t fraternise, their shared concern over Kate had forged a bond between them. There were times, as now, when rank and status would be set aside and they’d converse simply as friends.

  To Callum it was a huge relief to find another man he could talk to and share his worries with. Toby was the solid, dependable type, not one to panic easily or allow himself to be put upon. It surprised Callum sometimes that Toby Lynch still found the time to enquire so often about Kate’s health, when he was more than fully occupied fighting daily battles at the factory, not only with the men, but with Lucy who seemed to think she was entirely in charge while his mam was away.

  Toby said, ‘The address must be somewhere amongst Mrs Lucy’s belongings. Besides, don’t you write to your mother regularly?’

  As so often, there wasn’t any preamble to Tony’s questions. He spoke as if this were a mere continuation of an ongoing discussion, which, in effect, it was. Their shared concern over Kate’s whereabouts and condition had scarcely been out of their minds since the weekend Lucy had returned home alone from Scotland.

  Callum agreed that they did indeed write, every week. ‘Only we don’t have the address. We give the sealed envelope, or postcard, to Lucy, and she posts it for us. We don’t even know if Mam gets the letters because we never hear a word in reply, not since that one and only letter we received back in January, shortly after she arrived. It’s hard on Flora, she’s missing her mammy badly. I’ve argued with Lucy on the subject, swallowed me pride and pleaded with her even, but she is absolutely adamant that she won’t divulge it. Claims to be afraid I might go storming up there and drag Mam out long before her recovery is complete.’

  Toby’s face had grown dark with anger throughout Callum’s explanation. ‘Well, of course you would,’ he snapped. ‘If you didn’t, I certainly would. I don’t believe, any more than you, this tale of Kate going off her head or attempting to slit her wrists. It simply isn’t in her to do such a dreadful thing, not when you and Flora mean so much to her. However depressed she might be, however much she might be mourning Eliot, she would always put you two first. She lives for her children. Lucy is lying.’

  ‘But how to prove it? More important, how to get around her lies and discover the truth?’

  Toby sucked in his breath. ‘That is a problem, I will admit.’ The pair of them were thoughtful for a long while, concentrating on eating their sandwiches, watching a pair of moorhens bobbing about in the river. Toby eventually said, ‘So you don’t fancy rooting through Lucy’s things?’

  Callum shrugged. ‘I already have. Found nothing. She’s far too clever to be so careless.’

  ‘Even clever people, at least people like Lucy who arrogantly imagine themselves to be cleverer than everyone else, do make mistakes. They get over-confident and slip up. We simply have to be there when she does.’

  Lucy was obliged to call again upon the bank manager, with funds growing ever more tight. Her friends were slowly getting the message that she was no longer such an easy touch, except for that dratted Swainson who was still leeching money out of her, coming round regular as clockwork every few weeks. A little bit here, a little bit there. It was costing her a small fortune Lucy could ill afford just to keep his mouth shut, yet she couldn’t ever seem to satisfy him. Anyone would think she was a bottomless pit of cash. She certainly had less and less patience with Toby’s cautious management of the business, or with the poor dividends it paid. What on earth was the man’s problem? It was vital that Tyson Industries be restored to its former glory and generate sufficient money to fund her glamorous lifestyle.

  This time it took more of her charm to win the bank manager round. He sat in his swivel chair, tapping his spectacles against his teeth whilst he listened, apparently unmoved by her tale of woe. ‘Business not too good then? Seems to have been suffering from Kate’s absence, wouldn’t you say?’ he pointedly remarked.

  Lucy was incensed by this but did her best to disguise her wrath. ‘My sister-in-law has, I’m afraid, badly neglected the business for some considerable time. I’m having a perfectly frightful struggle trying to keep things on an even keel as a result.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, looking far from convinced.

  ‘You wouldn’t see a poor widow woman struggle, would you, Norman?’ Lucy purred, fluttering her eyelashes provocatively at him and angling her body so that he could see her figure to its best advantage. Darling Charles had always declared she had the finest breasts in Christendom.

  The manager, happily married and with four daughters, cleared his throat and mildly enquired, ‘What sort of sum were you thinking of?’

  When Lucy told him, a small crease of concern appeared above the bridge of his nose and he put back his spectacles, as if he needed them to view her properly and help him to think. ‘My word, that is a considerable sum, dear lady.’

  Lucy gave a trilling, light-hearted little laugh. ‘You surely aren’t suggesting that Tyson’s credit isn’t good? We have substantial assets.’

  There was a silence. ‘Indeed you have but, correct me if I’m wrong, as I understand it, they belong to your sister-in-law. Is she in agreement over this loan? Have you spoken to her about it?’

  Lucy briefly explained why this was impossible, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief as she did so. ‘It really is very sad, but the tragic loss of her husband has quite turned Kate’s mind.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it. A finer lady never lived.’

  Lucy smiled tightly, not really wishing to sit in the bank manager’s office and hear him praise Kate. She rose gracefully to her feet and stretched out her hand. ‘Thank you for listening to me, and for agreeing to help me through this sticky patch.’

  The bank manager also rose but did not take her hand immediately. ‘I don’t believe I have agreed quite yet, certainly not to the sum you mention. I could see my way to allowing your overdraft to rise to half that amount. Beyond that you’ll need to make savings of some sort within the factory.’

  Lucy drew in a sharp breath of relief and managed a bravely devastating smile. ‘I’m sure that can be arranged.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d care to take coffee while I have the papers drawn up? I’ll have my secretary attend you.’ So saying, he led her from his office back into the reception area where Lucy was left kicking her heels until the secretary bustled in with a tray of coffee and Marie biscuits.

  Later, when the papers were all signed, the manager took Lucy by the elbow and led her to the door. ‘Remember what I said about reducing costs?’

  ‘I already have the matter in hand. We were somewhat overstaffed and I’ve made stringent cuts.’

  Again he frowned, his concern deepening. ‘I’ve never considered Tyson’s Shoes to be particularly overstaffed, although it is certainly well supplied with skilled workers. I was meaning hidden costs - insurance, postage and stationery, heating bills, advertising and making sure that you source your materials carefully with no overstocking of leather. All of that needs to be looked into carefully.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Having got most, if not all, of what she’d wanted, Lucy was anxious to leave.

  ‘But curb your own expenditure a little too, dear lady. It was ever a weakness I seem to recall?’ With a small bow he took his leave, while a shocked Lucy found herself to be in full view of his dratted secretary who had clearly heard every word but was vigorously pretending to have gone quite deaf.

  There was one way, Lucy decided, that savings could be made, and that was to rid herself of the encumbrance of Kate. She wrote to Elvira the very next day to make an appointment to check on her sister-in-law’s progress, tactfully suggesting that it might be time to make some decisions about Kate’s long term future; that it was best not to let the matter drift on too long.

  If she hurried, she would just be able to get the letter off before lunch.

  Lucy poured her usual glass of Madeira before pulling out the latest bill from the asylum, wh
ich she’d secreted away in a leather folder tucked right at the back of the top drawer of Eliot’s desk. She dashed off a cheque for the correct amount, shuddering at the cost, which only served to harden her resolve still further. After that she swiftly penned her note and sealed it with the cheque in an envelope, upon which she scribbled the address, copying it from the bill spread open on the desk just as the dinner gong sounded.

  Smiling to herself Lucy slid the envelope into her pocket, tidied everything away and went off to lunch. She always popped such payments into the post box herself, just to be on the safe side. She had no wish for Ida, or any other curious onlooker, to take note of the Scottish address.

  But it was long past time for her generosity to cease, time to think of herself and her own children, to have the upstart moved somewhere safe and cheap, a place from which there was no return. Kate O’Connor’s days were numbered.

  The next house party Lucy had planned was to take as its theme ‘The Harem’. She’d ordered a gorgeous, floaty, sari-type garment for herself in a beautiful peacock blue trimmed with gold braid. Her plan was for Teddy, dressed as the Viceroy of India, to escort her to the dining room at a slow walk, allowing all the guests ample opportunity to admire her in the gown. They would then follow on behind before singing the National Anthem and commencing the meal.

  Lucy strongly approved of the Empire and colonialism. How else would those poor unfortunate souls who were not born British possibly survive?

  Feeling herself duty bound to play the benefactress, in keeping with her theme, despite being short of ready money, Lucy had bought gifts for all her guests: cuff-links for the men, ear-bobs for the women. For the food, she intended to offer authentic Indian dishes, except that Mrs Petty was being even more difficult than usual.

  ‘Curry? And what might that be when it’s at home?’