by Abigail Agar
At last, some how, neglecting to satisfy its hungry maw, or having otherwise disobliged it on some occasion, it resumed its nature; and on a sudden fell upon her, and tore her in pieces.—And who was most to blame, I pray? The brute, or the lady? The lady, surely!— For what she did was out of nature, out of character, at least: what it did was in its own nature.
She couldn’t help wondering if maybe the original story had been a wolf not a bear or lion. She had always imagined it as a wolf cub. She lay the book down; it just felt too heavy in her hands. Besides, she could recite most of her favourite parts from memory.
When she tried, she found it hard like there was a block on her mind. Everything felt foggy and grey. In an effort to clear the fog, she lay down, hoping that sleep would help.
But sleep didn’t come.
She tossed and turned on the bed, unable to sleep, but without the energy to rise and do anything else.
Her imagination conjured up shadows in the dark; she thought she could hear the steady breathing of Lord Stanley, his astonishingly loud snoring, even feel the heat of his body radiating out of the dark beside her. It was all so real that she reached out … and her hand fell through the empty air. She turned over and tried to bring the hallucination back, but it was gone. Instead, her mind ran around on tracks singing snatches of old songs, old stories. Words which played again and again in her head as if returning every night to the same theatre:
Baby, baby, naughty baby, Hush, you squalling thing, I say; Hushing your squalling, or it may be that Bonaparte may pass this way.
She remembered passages from plays, from Latin translations, even from a gravestone she had walked past.
To be or not to be, that is the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die—to sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d…
Mors mihi lucrum…
Clara Elspeth O’Connell, Drowned A Witch, 1642…
Sleep simply would not come.
She knew morning had arrived because she could read the titles on the spines of the book. It was so overcast a day that there was little else to hint that the sun was up.
In that light, everything was grey. Not just her grey sheets and grey dress but the gold and maroon covers of the books. The waxy yellow of the candle, even the bundle of red roses left by Lord Stanley. She wondered where he was. What he was doing right then.
Who is bringing him his breakfast now? Will Caruthers have replaced Fidel yet?
The questions blinked across her exhausted mind.
Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep.
Baby, baby, he will hear you, As he passes by the house, And he limb from limb will tear you, Just as pussy tears a mouse.
Sleep … sleep … sleep …
… then she remembered – she did have a way out. The bottle of laudanum. One drop or two, and she would drift off into a deep sleep.
But it was strong, much stronger that the bottle suggested. A few more drops, and she’d be out like a light. Drink the whole thing, and she might never wake up again.
A spark of hope flashed bright, clearing some of the fog that was running her mind down. A plan began to form. She would do it late at night when there were fewer people to try to stop her. All she needed was to set the scene, and she would be ready to go.
With a new purpose to drive her forward, she began to feel life beating again in her limbs, carried there in the blood which pumped from a lightened heart.
She could leave this cell any time she liked. It was in her power to decide when. All it would take was some planning.
Chapter 19
Vera sat against the wall of her cell. She didn’t have much space, but it was her own, and it was clean. The scent in this area was of straw and soup, neither of which was offensive.
She had a book open as usual but was not reading; her mind was locked on other things. She took in a deep breath and stared at the expanse of the whitewashed wall before her.
She might be on the verge of losing everything, perhaps her life, but still thoughts of Lord Stanley came into her mind. The image of the shape of him on white sheets, the feeling of his hand on hers, and the touch of his lips all flooded her thoughts.
She had seen a magic-lantern show as a child once and been delighted by the images the light threw up onto the cloth the showman had stretched between two hat stands. They had seemed so real to her at the time. Now, as she imagined Lord Stanley thrown up on the wall like a magic-lantern show, she wondered that her childhood self had been so satisfied by the illusion. She craved the real thing so completely now that her imagined projections were just torture to her desperate mind.
Then she remembered the look in his eye as he said he would see her no more. However much his affections prompted him to ensure her well-being, his withdrawal created pain more than Vera could stand. Perhaps, just perhaps that affection meant he did not condemn her completely.
Exhaling until her chest was emptied, she gave a silent moment of thanks to her love. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be huddled in the dark with ten other prisoners, trying not to fall into pools of human waste. She shuddered at the thought of the degradation that those without patronage were living with.
Still, she would have given up every comfort in an instant if only she could have Lord Stanley back. Warmth, food, and security paled in comparison to her longing for him.
Just then, footsteps approached. Vera jumped, startled.
‘Deep in thought are you, murderess?’ Her guard loomed over her, holding a bowl. ‘What do you have to think so hard about? Not planning more deviant crimes, I should hope.’
Vera looked up at him, trying to keep her gaze meek. ‘No, sir.’
He placed a hand on the wall above her, still holding the bowl back. ‘It’s a shame really when women get led astray. It’s because your minds are tender and weak. Malleable; a plaything for the Devil.’ His broad red face was speckled with a patchy beard that shifted as he spoke.
Vera clenched her teeth and looked down in a way she hoped seemed reticent. ‘You know far better than I, sir.’
He returned her reticence with a smile from a mouth which was almost precisely half full of teeth, each one of which was a mottling of black on brown. Now the guard crouched beside her. ‘Particularly a shame when the plaything is so pretty. All will go to waste when you hang.’ He clinked the bowl on the floor beside Vera, his face coming dangerously close to hers as he did.
Vera tried to keep her breaths shallow and willed herself not to show relief as the guard rose up again. He chuckled slightly and looked down on her as if she were a dog who had chewed up a boot.
‘You have a note from that admirer of yours. Lucky fella that,’ he said and dropped a calling card.
The front read James Stanley, Lord and in his hasty scrawl on the back: Sorry I doubted you. Keep hope, my love.
That was all very well in Vera’s mind, but she had a plan in place herself. Staring down at her bowl of thin soup, she saw a segue into getting what she wanted from the guard.
It was transparent, and she could see each of the modest few vegetables that lurked at the bottom.
No doubt it was better than the sandy gruel that less fortunate prisoners fought over, but it was still barely enough to make her feel she’d eaten at all even with the hunk of bread that the guard thunked down onto the table.
The guard began to turn to go, and Vera spoke.
‘My good sir?’
He turned, a look of patronising amusement sprawled on his face. ‘What is it, wench?’
‘I wonder if you could help me.’
‘I do my best for all the lady inmates.’
‘It is just a small help, only this,’ she said. ‘Could you bring me two things next time you come by? I do so want a proper meal. A bit of cheese and a b
ottle of wine.’
‘You get far better than the slop they get in the cells downstairs. Better even than my table at home sees most nights.’
‘Yes, but it’s still barely a meal, wouldn’t you agree? Don’t you deserve more on your table, rather than everyone else being forced to have less?’ She tried to stare at the expanse of the man’s stomach.
No doubt he had a very different idea of what constituted a meal to her. It did not look as though his home table was quite as hard up as he made out.
‘It’s all you’re getting.’ His words were decisive.
Vera cleared her throat delicately. ‘I do believe compensation has been given for my lodgings.’
He sneered. ‘And this broth is what those “compensations” get you.’ He did a perfect facsimile of her speech on the word “compensations” despite his many absentee teeth.
‘Perhaps more could be supplied,’ said Vera coyly. ‘If the compensation were more judiciously shared out. I imagine the warden makes the most from the hire of cells like mine?’
The guard laughed but remained where he stood. ‘Plenty has been paid for your upkeep already.’ He took a step closer, enjoying the threat he posed. ‘I’d advise you to be grateful for what you have.’
Vera took a breath and continued pressing. ‘What I am getting at, sir, is that the reward that you would personally receive would be handsome, if you were to help me with some improved rations.’
The guard looked at her and licked what was left of his teeth. ‘Well, ma’am. I can get some cheese and wine for sure; there’s a fine little shop down at the Bathcombe market. But the purchase of cheese and wine would cost me money from my pay, and as you say, I don’t, personally, get a cut of what the warden gets.’
Vera leaned forward. ‘I could get you enough to make you very pleased to bring me wine and cheese.’ She brushed a strand of hair back with as much allure as she could manage. ‘You could even stay and share it with me if you wanted to. I don’t get much company here.’
His eyes lit up like a schoolboy at Christmas, but with rather less of the innocence one might expect from a youth at that most Christian time of year.
‘For me a little extra coin would prove very useful. I’d be more than happy to bring some meat and wine for one of my mistresses,’ he said thoughtfully.
He said the words without a sign of lechery passing his face, just a simple statement that hung in the air. He didn’t seem like he was going to push it, and frankly, it would make it easier to do with his hideous face looming out. She only needed the wine to dilute the laudanum and make it drinkable; once the wine was drunk, he would no longer be her problem.
She looked at his belly and teeth. ‘You have a lot of mistresses do you?’
He started back, an irritated look on his face. She did her best to smile. ‘If you bring me what I want this evening, I will see that you are fully compensated.’
The guard’s eyes were wide now and fixed on her. ‘I do not normally take bribes, you understand, but I’ll see what I can do.’
‘I thank you for that,’ Vera said softly.
The guard’s lips twitched with a smile. ‘I can see how the Devil made an easy plaything of you.’
‘So you’ll–’ Vera took a breathy pause for effect. ‘Do it? Help me?’
‘If you intend to, how did you put it? Compensate me handsomely?’ He chuckled.
‘Of course,’ said Vera. ‘Handsomely.’
She wanted to slap him, to tear out what was left of his teeth, the way he leered at her. Instead, she redoubled her smile and through tensed jaw tried not to snarl as she said, ‘I will see you this evening then.’
The guard glanced around, confirming their arrangement had gone unwitnessed. ‘I’ll return tonight.’
***
When the guard left, it was back to the quiet of the lonely cell for Vera. The traipsing around the courtyard with Catherine and Martha.
Catherine seemed agitated, and while Martha wandered off following a trail of ants to its source, Catherine pulled Vera aside.
‘I need to unburden myself, dear,’ she said.
‘Unburden yourself of what?’ Vera replied.
‘It’s a shameful thing to admit. But I’m not as innocent as I make out. You see, I’m not here on my husband’s behalf. They’re not blackmailing me. I took the lace; I got caught. But I don’t know why I took the lace. I didn’t need it. My Edwin – that’s my husband’s name see – my Edwin’s a good man, but he spends a lot of his time pursuing odd things. At the moment its politics, but it used to be painting; before that it was lepidopterology. He was never in the house. And a woman’s got needs don’t she. Somehow stealing the odd thing let out some of the tension. I think I wanted to get caught, so he’d pay some attention to me again. I am his wife after all. But now I’ve ruined us both. Thanks for listening; I needed to tell someone, and I felt you’d be forgiving given what you’re in for.’
Vera had hardly listened to the whole story; her mind was still on her room and the straw covered crack she had hidden the bottle of laudanum in.
Catherine talked on and on about her husband until Martha rejoined them saying that time was up and the guards had called them in from “playtime”.
Once back in her cell, she tried to read again but still couldn’t concentrate; this time not because her mind was too distracted but because it kept total focus on the plan for this evening. The only parts that registered in her reading were the moments of Clarissa’s drugging; she hoped she could find some guidance in the jumbled lines of Richardson’s novel:
The called-for tea was ready presently … I was made to drink two dishes, with milk, complaisantly urged by the pretended ladies helping me each to one. I was stupid to their hands; and, when I took the tea, almost choked with vapours; and could hardly swallow. I thought, transiently thought, that the tea, the last dish particularly, had an odd taste.
If she was to ensure her plan worked, she would have to mask the taste and vapours of the laudanum or risk failing to deliver the full bottle and so be forced to acquiesce to the advances of her guard.
She practiced palming the bottle of laudanum, undoing the cork and dropper without drawing attention and passing the bottle over an imaginary cup.
Once she almost dropped it with the cap off, and the panic she felt at that moment was almost as strong as when she had heard the door of her father’s study open during the murders at her home.
To improve her chances of controlling the guard, Vera attempted to tidy her appearance. She ran her fingers through her hair, adjusted the arrangement of her body in her shift, and pinched her cheeks.
She could tell well enough already that the guard found her to be an object of desire, but every bit helped. The more distracting he found her, the better chance she had.
Days dressed as a boy and now confined as a prisoner had limited the efforts Vera could make with her looks. Even still, she could feel the effect of them. Her feminine allure was still a novel and untested power, but it was proving potent.
There was only one man, though, that she truly wanted to look at her with longing. But to have a chance at being with Lord Stanley again, Vera would have to use every tool at her disposal.
Keep hope, my love, the note had said. What that meant was beyond her.
Sorry I doubted you.
She had to get to him.
With any luck, her plan would fall into place before any true sacrifice had to be made.