Poppy heard the wrought-iron gates to the Willow Park asylum opening with a creak and braced herself as the wagon lurched forward. She held her breath as Bess clopped up the gravel drive, fearing that at any moment the guard would see through Mr Thompson’s feeble excuse for being there at half past six in the morning. But all she could hear was the closing of the gates and the laboured breathing of Bess and her owner.
Mr Thompson pulled back the tarpaulin and spoke quietly to Poppy without looking at her while he collected his usual equipment, supplemented by a bag of tools that he tied to his waist. If the guard decided to check up on what he was doing, he might legitimately ask why a window cleaner needed a crowbar and a bolt-cutter to do his job.
“If she hasn’t been moved yet she’ll be behind that window on the second floor. Fifth from the left.”
If she hasn’t been moved… That was their dilemma. Last night Poppy had gone to Mr Thompson’s house hoping that he would accompany her to the asylum immediately. She told Mr Thompson that Elizabeth was due to be transferred in the morning. However, he had wisely pointed out that he would not be able to justify cleaning the windows there at night and the guard would not let him in. Unless she expected them to climb the wall carrying the ladder, it would need to wait until morning. They had all agreed that it was not likely they would be moving Elizabeth at the crack of dawn, and decided to meet at six o’clock and get as early a start as possible. But Easling had delayed them and they were already half an hour behind schedule.
It also worried Poppy that they didn’t actually know what time the patients got up, had breakfast and so on, but there had not been time to find out. Oh, there were so many variables! And it was all out of Poppy’s control. But it wasn’t out of God’s, and no matter what her current strained relationship with her creator was, she decided to ask for his help to save a woman who had been unjustly imprisoned for seven years.
So as Poppy prayed, Mr Thompson took his ladder and climbed up to the second floor. He decided to wash a few windows to the left of Elizabeth’s room first in case anyone questioned why he had made a beeline for her window. The curtains were drawn on the first room and Mr Thompson assumed the patient was still asleep. The second room had a gap in the curtains and he saw someone moving around. The third window was Elizabeth’s: the curtains were open, the bed was made, and all signs that Elizabeth Dorchester had ever been there were gone.
CHAPTER 30
Elizabeth was shaken awake. She squinted at the filtered light seeping through the curtains and realized that it was too early to get up. She hunched up and pulled the blankets back over her head.
“Get up! Get up!” The blanket was pulled off her. Above her stood a woman with short spiky black hair, just beginning to grow in again after being shaved. She was wearing a nightgown.
“Leave me alone,” said Elizabeth and tugged again on the blanket.
“‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone!’ Lady La-de-dah wants me to leave her alone.”
This was greeted with an alternating chorus of “Belt up, Bertha!” and “You tell her, Bertha!”
Elizabeth was encouraged that the Belt-up-Berthas seemed to be in the majority, so she tugged on the blanket more forcefully and wrenched it out of Bertha’s grip. She held Bertha’s eyes, trying to dominate her, but the stockier woman was not going down without a fight. Elizabeth did not enjoy fighting, but her years as a militant suffragist had equipped her to do so when necessary. She had had to fight on more than one occasion back in Holloway when she and Gloria had been put in with the ordinary prison population despite their demands to be treated as political prisoners. After a particularly bad scrap, she and Gloria had decided to go on hunger strike, as many of their sisters before them had. And although the force-feeding was hell, at least it got them into an isolation cell, away from the women who hated them simply for being “posh”.
At Willow Park, she was grateful, if such a word could be used, that her father had paid for her to have a private room. But that was until yesterday. Yesterday, without warning, the matron and the young orderly who had been in the room the day the Denby girl had come to see her, had told her to pack her few things and go with them. They told her she was being moved. Transferred to Swansea. Elizabeth had demanded to see the head doctor. She did not want to move. No one had asked her. Surely she had rights! But her protests fell on deaf ears. And then, to add insult to injury, she was going to have to spend her last night in a general ward, with eleven other women. Apparently her room had already been allocated to someone else and the new patient was arriving first thing in the morning and they needed to clean it. As if she had somehow contaminated it.
Bertha was still looking at her. Weighing her up. Elizabeth braced herself for the assault, preparing to defend herself. But instead Bertha grinned, showing a line of crooked yellow teeth. Elizabeth grinned back and the two women laughed. Then the rest of the women joined in: some chortling, some shrieking. This brought a nurse in, who shouted at them all to “belt up” or they wouldn’t get breakfast. The threat did the trick and the women all settled down.
But it was too late for Elizabeth to get back to sleep. She was awake now. And soon she would have to get ready to move to Swansea. She pulled a shawl over her shoulders and padded, barefoot, over to the window. This was going to be her last morning here. She opened the curtains a crack, to the half-hearted grumblings of the other patients, and looked out over the gardens, over the wall and to the Battersea gas towers in the distance. Her stomach clenched. It was over. Her hopes, dreams and prayers of being released had come to nothing. The Denby girl and her newspaper had not been able to get her out.
So Plan B it would have to be. It would have been far easier to do in her private room – she would not manage it in here. Perhaps she could do it in the bathroom. Yes, that was a possibility. There were pipes and things in there, strong enough to hold her, and she could use her shawl. Or tear a strip from her nightgown and fashion a noose…
Bertha and the other patients were settling back down for an extra half-hour lie-in. Now was her chance. She went over and knocked quietly on the door of the nurses’ station. It opened. The nurse, red-eyed and weary after her night shift, growled at her. “What?”
“I need to use the toilet.”
“Toilet time’s not for half an hour still.”
“I know. But I need to go. Desperately.” Elizabeth crossed her legs and wriggled to demonstrate the urgency.
“All right.” The woman nodded in the direction of the communal bathroom.
Elizabeth didn’t move.
“What?”
“I’m moving to Swansea today. I’ve been here seven years. I –”
The nurse looked at her unsympathetically and started to shut the door. Elizabeth held it open. The nurse’s red-rimmed eyes opened in surprise, then narrowed in suspicion.
“They told me you wouldn’t be a bother.”
“I’m not. I – I was just wondering if while I’m in the bathroom I could have a bath. It’s my last day. These other women don’t know me, but they don’t like me. Please. I need a bit of privacy. Please… there’ll be less chance of a commotion. If Bertha starts off again…”
The nurse considered this, then nodded. “All right. But make sure you’re dressed and ready before that lot get up. You’ve” – she checked her watch – “just over twenty minutes.”
“Thank you,” said Elizabeth, with a catch in her throat. “You’re very kind.” And she meant it. This touch of humanity almost made her want to change her plans. Almost.
Mr Thompson came down the ladder and pulled back the tarpaulin, pretending to replenish his supplies. Without looking at Poppy he said, “She’s not there.”
“Maybe she’s up already. Having breakfast. Or in the bathroom.”
“No. Her bed’s made and her things are gone. And I’ve checked some other rooms and the patients aren’t properly up yet.”
“So that means…”
“She’s gone.”<
br />
“We’re too late.”
“Looks that way. Swansea, is it?”
“Yes,” said Poppy, desperately disappointed but immediately trying to reassess the situation. Perhaps Swansea was not out of reach. Perhaps Rollo’s legal team could still get her out. But it would be delayed, and it would be out of her hands, and could Elizabeth take it? Poppy didn’t know.
She needed to speak to Rollo. She couldn’t risk a phone call – not with the possibility that Alfie was tapping in. She’d have to see him in person. She’d ask Mr Thompson to drop her off. But Mr Thompson was heading back to the ladder and starting to climb.
“Where are you going?” hissed Poppy.
Mr Thompson cleared his throat loudly and then made a mime of realizing he’d forgotten something. He came back to the wagon.
“I can’t just leave after three windows. I need to do this whole wing, or the guard’ll get suspicious.”
“How long will it take?”
Mr Thompson shrugged. “Dunno. Half an hour?”
Poppy sighed and readjusted her cramped position.
Elizabeth collected her toiletry bag and padded quietly towards the bathroom, being careful to make as little noise as possible. She shut the door, then leaned her back against it and rolled her head from side to side, feeling the hardness of the wood against her skull. The communal bathroom had two bathtubs and a bank of showers, along with three toilets – not in separate stalls. Compared to Holloway it was the Ritz Hotel. Her father had at least considered her comfort in his choice of prison.
She had thought of writing a farewell letter – a suicide note. In it she would detail everything that had happened to her, making sure the blame fell squarely on the shoulders of her father. But she really couldn’t be bothered. Nor did she have time if she was going to die before they moved her to Swansea. And besides, the folk at Willow Park were so deep into her father’s pocket that she would expect any note to disappear before it ever saw the light of day. Her only hope of some kind of public vindication was the Denby girl. She wished now that she had told her where to find the box. She had chosen to keep that to herself to ensure she had some leverage: if the paper wanted the dirt on her father, they would need to get her out first. But now there was no way of exposing her father’s crimes before she died.
Perhaps her suicide would prompt an investigation. Perhaps her brother would finally see their father for who he really was. The boy – because that’s how she still thought of him – had been in his thrall since the day he was born. As he got older and the abuse of their mother became more frequent, she’d hoped his love for his mother would have caused him to side with her; but it didn’t. He’d wept when he’d seen her black eyes and begged her to change her ways, but fully accepted that their father had no other choice – or was too scared to say otherwise.
Alfie was a coward. She’d heard he’d won the Victoria Cross for bravery in the war – how he’d managed that she had no idea. He’d brought it in for her to see on one of his visits. She had taken it from him, weighing the heavy iron in one hand and her Bible in the other like a pair of scales. “Mother would have been proud, Alfie,” she’d said caustically. “Such a brave boy.” And he’d slapped her so hard, there were welt marks on her cheek for two days.
She reached up and touched her cheek and was surprised to feel tears there. She wiped them away quickly, stood up straight and surveyed the bathroom for an appropriate place to hang her noose.
Poppy shifted her weight again. Her shoulder ached and her hip was pressing against something sharp. She rolled over and upset one of Mr Thompson’s buckets, causing a clatter.
“You! Whatya doing?” A woman’s voice.
She froze, holding her breath. Had someone heard her?
“Cleaning windows, Matron.”
“I see that. But why are you doing it at ten to seven in the morning?”
“I didn’t finish the last time I was here. Poured with rain, if you remember.”
“Did it really?” The matron’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Yeah, it did,” said Mr Thompson. “I’ve got a job on this side of the river this morning and thought I’d squeeze you in. Don’t want to leave a job half done. That wouldn’t be right.”
“Thought you’d be a peeping Tom more like it. That’s the women’s bathroom you’re in front of. Get yourself down, you filthy scoundrel. And come into the office. I want a word with you.”
Poppy heard Mr Thompson start to say something, but it was drowned by the clatter of a bucket hitting the wall. Then the tarpaulin was pulled back. She froze again, but was relieved to see it was just Mr Thompson putting his tool belt in the wagon.
“How long is this going to take?” he asked the matron.
“As long as it needs to,” she said.
Elizabeth had been to the toilet, not wanting to soil herself in the throes of death. Then she ran the bath to mask the sound of what she would be doing next. She found a broken tile and used it to tear the hem of her nightdress, then made a fair approximation of a noose with the fabric. She looked around and spotted a sturdy-looking pipe running along the wall above the window. She stood on the side of the bath and hoisted herself onto the windowsill, steadying herself on the bars. There were no curtains over the window and the glass wasn’t frosted. She took one last look at the world she was about to leave and noticed a horse and wagon below. It was the window cleaner. What was he doing here this time of the morning? Then she saw the matron, arms akimbo, giving someone a dressing down. A cowed Mr Thompson shuffled into frame, unhooked his tool belt and pulled back the tarpaulin on his wagon.
From her second-floor vantage point Elizabeth could see something the matron couldn’t: a woman lying flat in the wagon. And if she was not mistaken, it looked very much like Dot Denby’s niece.
Poppy raised her eyes to meet Mr Thompson’s as he placed the tool belt beside her. He shrugged as if to say “can’t be helped”, then started fumbling with the tie to the tarpaulin.
“Leave that!”
He shrugged again and did as he was told, leaving one corner flap open as he followed the matron to her office.
Poppy readied herself to crawl further under the tarpaulin, away from prying eyes, when suddenly a movement at a second-floor window caught her eye.
Poppy looked up: there was a red-haired woman standing on a windowsill looking down on her. Dear God, it was Elizabeth Dorchester! There was no time to think things through properly. All she knew was she had to get up Mr Thompson’s ladder before he and the matron returned. Poppy picked up the tool belt and vaulted out of the wagon.
CHAPTER 31
Elizabeth languished in the bath. Lang-wish. She wondered about the root of the word. Wishful thinking about lounging? Longing to wish? She scooped up some bubbles and held them on the palm of her hand before blowing them into a soapy mist. Probably not. Probably something French. She lay back and rested her head on the edge of the black marble tub and allowed both wrists to hang over the side. She noticed her fingernails: stubby and chewed. She bet the woman who usually languished in this bath would never allow her nails to get into such a state. Delilah Marconi. Gloria’s daughter. How old would she be now? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Did she realize the sacrifices her mother had made for her? Elizabeth remembered the last time she had seen Gloria, her black hair billowing in the snow and the wind, standing beside the railway track and then… and then…
There was a knock on the door.
“I’ve put out some clothes for you. They might not fit very well, but it’s the best we can do at such short notice.” It was the Denby girl.
“Thank you,” called Elizabeth. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
The girl sounded far more provincial than her affected aunt. But Elizabeth didn’t care two hoots about breeding. She and that cockney window cleaner had got her out of the asylum. She wasn’t dreaming it; she wasn’t. She was free!
Poppy lay the set of clothes on the back of a chair outside the
bathroom door. Elizabeth was a tall, big-boned woman and nothing of Delilah’s would fit properly. The loose kaftan and slacks was the best she could find, and a pair of men’s deck shoes – Adam’s? – finished off the outfit. It was a crime against fashion, but Poppy couldn’t leave the woman in the torn, sodden nightgown she had found her in.
Back at the asylum, when she had got up the ladder she used Mr Thompson’s crowbar to prise up the window, then the bolt cutters to break through the bars. Between them, Elizabeth and Poppy had created a big enough hole for the older woman to squeeze through. Only a few moments after she and Elizabeth had climbed into the wagon, Mr Thompson returned from his dressing down with the matron. He contained his surprise admirably when he noticed two women hiding under his tarpaulin instead of one and simply retrieved his ladder and headed back down the drive with Bess.
Once through the gates he geed the mare into a steady trot and headed as fast as he could to Chelsea Bridge. The whole way Elizabeth and Poppy wondered if anyone would apprehend them, but they didn’t. When they got to King’s Road, as per instruction Mr Thompson took them into the alley around the back of Delilah’s apartment building.
As soon as she’d got Elizabeth up the fire escape and through the back door, as arranged with Delilah, Poppy came back out and thanked Mr Thompson, promising to be in touch with him as soon as possible to tell him what was going to happen next.
“I’ll be out working all day, but leave a message with me missus or Vicky.”
“I will, Mr Thompson. And I’m sorry you’ve lost your job at the asylum.”
“So am I, miss, but it’ll be worth it when Dorchester gets his come-uppance.”
Poppy hoped she would not disappoint the grieving father. She was playing a dangerous game and she wasn’t quite sure what her next move would be.
The art deco clock on Delilah’s mantlepiece struck ten. Poppy and Elizabeth were sitting down to a full English breakfast, as per the older woman’s request. Poppy watched her as she savoured every morsel of the egg, bacon, sausage, tomato and toast. Apparently all she got in the asylum was porridge, sometimes with prunes, and toast. Scrambled egg was a once-a-month treat.
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