The Unseeing

by Anna Mazzola

  “I showed her in and James introduced me as his housekeeper, as we’d agreed.”

  But Hannah Brown was no fool. She looked Sarah up and down, appraising her in an instant. She seemed to take in her cheap print dress and worn shoes and say, Yes, I’m better than that.

  “And then?” said Edmund.

  “And then I laid out the food for them and left them to eat.” Sarah had stayed in the bedroom and listened to the low buzz of voices, the occasional burst of laughter, and the scraping of cutlery. It had reminded her of being a child, sitting at the top of the stairs listening to one of her parents’ dinner parties in the dining room below: the same sense of isolation but compounded with humiliation and rage.

  “She wasn’t a handsome woman, was she?” Edmund said. “The witnesses at the trial were not flattering in their descriptions of her.”

  Sarah thought back to the trial—to all the people who had spoken of Hannah. Not one, she realized, had spoken of her with any affection or warmth.

  “No, Hannah wasn’t handsome,” she said. “He wanted her for her money.”

  “Do you think she knew that?”

  Sarah considered this. She thought of Hannah showing her the wedding dress, smoothing her hand over the red silk. And she thought no, Hannah Brown did not really know. James’s flattery and fine words must have made her believe, as they had made Sarah believe, that he truly cared for her. She felt the unexpected sting of tears in her eyes. Hannah Brown had fooled herself into thinking that James loved her.

  “No,” she said simply. “I don’t think she knew.”

  “When did she move in?”

  “Not long after that. Maybe the second week in December. James helped her carry two trunks of belongings into the house.”

  “All my wordly goods!” Hannah had said, affecting an air of levity. And Sarah had thought: then you are not so rich as all that.

  “You were still living there at this stage?” Edmund said.

  Sarah averted her eyes, a flush of shame spreading across her face. “Yes, I moved into George’s little room. I had a mattress on the floor. There was nowhere else for us to go, you see.”

  That was not exactly true. She could, she supposed, have moved into a lodging house immediately, although it would have meant they had very little on which to live. However, she had stayed because she had hoped even then that it might somehow be all right. That she might somehow learn to accept her new lot of second woman.

  At night, lying on her straw mattress, Sarah listened for telltale sounds from the bedroom next door. She held her breath, expecting to hear groans of desire or exertion, but there was only ever muffled talking and whispering, the creak of the floorboards. Mostly, there was silence. It was this that kept her from outright despair. If James was not sleeping with Hannah, then it was still possible that she herself could serve some purpose. If he only wanted Hannah for the money, then there might yet be room in his life for her. Looking back now, she knew it was a ridiculous way to have thought and an awful way to have lived: squeezed into a tiny room, clinging on to a thread of hope.

  Each morning, she would rise at six o’clock and prepare breakfast for Hannah and James. When Hannah descended the stairs the two women would exchange a few stilted words while Sarah stirred the coffee in the saucepan, and then Sarah would find a reason to leave the kitchen.

  “Did Hannah Brown know about the relationship between Greenacre and yourself?” Edmund asked.

  “Officially, no, but I’m certain she guessed. She was sharp as steel, that woman.”

  Sarah was equally certain that Hannah had wanted her and George out.

  “When did Greenacre tell you to leave his house?”

  “It was about a week before Christmas. He said I’d have to suit myself with other lodgings as they’d arranged to be married on Christmas Day. So I took George and most of our possessions to a boarding house nearby, off the Walworth Road. It was a nasty, damp place. The landlady looked me up and down and raised an eyebrow at George in his shabby clothes. She reckoned me a night flower, I think.”

  “Yes,” Edmund said. “I’ve met Mrs. Wignal. I can imagine she wouldn’t have been particularly welcoming. How did you leave things with James?”

  “There wasn’t much of a saying of goodbyes, although James did ruffle George’s hair and tell him to be a good boy for me. I won’t pretend I wasn’t bitter, but there was no point in saying it.” And she had not wanted James to have the final satisfaction of knowing how deeply he had hurt her.

  “What did you do after that?”

  “I got on with my life as best I could. George and I spent those days mainly in our little parlor, which had a fire, thankfully, as it was biting cold by that time in December. I’d taken in some sewing and shoe binding from the neighbors, and the money from that kept us fed, albeit not very well. I had to live more slenderly than ever now that I was paying the rent.”

  “And did you hear anything further from Greenacre?”

  “Nothing. I thought James might at least come and check on us, but he didn’t. I went back on the morning of the 24th of December to pick up the rest of my belongings.”

  In part, it had been pretext to see whether James still intended to go through with the wedding. She could not quite believe that he would do it.

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “No, he wasn’t there.” She paused. “I saw Hannah Brown, though.”

  “And?”

  “We sat together and drank tea in the kitchen. It’s odd to think of it now. We’d never been friends. She told me that they were to be married on Christmas Day at St. Giles’s church and that they’d arranged to dine with some friends of hers beforehand on the Coldharbour Lane. She showed me the dress she intended to wear. I wished her the best for it, took my things, and then went to Rosina’s for the rest of the day.”

  “You didn’t try to tell her that James only wanted her for her money?”

  Sarah thought back to their conversation. It had seemed to her then that Hannah was gloating.

  “He’ll like it, won’t he?” she had said, running her hand over the red dress. “He’s been holding himself back for our wedding night, but he’ll think me handsome in this, won’t he?”

  Sarah had believed then that Hannah was trying to rub salt in the wound, but wondered now whether she had been seeking reassurance.

  “No,” Sarah said to Edmund at last. “I didn’t. I didn’t say anything to warn her. I don’t suppose she would have believed me had I told her, but…”

  “But?”

  Sarah moistened her dry lips. “Well, I think now that I should have said something.”

  Edmund had stopped writing. He was looking at her intently. “You didn’t say anything then, but you can say something now, Sarah.”

  Sarah opened her mouth, the words forming in her mind, but there was something in his eyes that stopped her. A flash of something cold, like the edge of a blade.

  Edmund fixed his gaze on her. “You couldn’t save Hannah Brown, but you have an opportunity to save yourself. Think about it. Think about it very carefully, because by the end of this week I must make my decision.”

  • • •

  Miss Sowerton had assigned Sarah to laundry duty.

  “It’ll be nice for you to get out of your cell, won’t it?” she had said, drawing back her lips to expose stained teeth.

  Laundry duty involved a stint of up to five hours in a stiflingly hot room, washing and wringing and sorting the thousands of sheets and flannels and items of clothing that had come from all over the prison, some dripping in lice, others riddled with disease.

  After luncheon, Sarah took her allotted place next to the huge trough in which the clothing received its first rinse, to remove the vermin and the worst of the dirt. The air was already thick with steam and with the smell of washing from the morning se
ssion. Twenty women were employed in the laundry at any one time: some to sort it into bundles, some to stir the vats, others to work the mangles, others to dry, fold, and iron. Sarah saw with a shiver of fear that Rook and her friend Boltwood had been put on the wringing team. Sarah felt their gaze on her like the brush of a moth’s wings. She knew their low-toned conversation was about her.

  Sarah had never seen the two warders on duty before. She thought they must be inferior warders who lived outside Newgate, unlike Sowerton and Groves, who had rooms within the prison. Sarah could not imagine that being a live-in warder or matron was much better than being an actual prisoner. They woke within Newgate’s forbidding stone walls and could only leave for a half day every other Sunday. For the rest of the time, they resided alongside the damaged, the dangerous, and the impoverished, working ten to twelve hours a day for scant pay and little thanks. It was no wonder that these women had themselves turned to stone.

  By three o’clock, Sarah’s clothing was drenched with her own sweat and with moisture from the dank air. As she stirred the increasingly dirty water with a ladle, she thought of Hannah Brown in her own laundry. She would not have carried out any of the washing herself, of course, only supervised the other women; but her hands—red and calloused—betrayed the years of labor it had taken her to get to that stage. That was why, Sarah had realized, she wore those soft kid gloves, just as she covered her lined face with powder and colored her sallow cheeks with rouge.

  Of course she had jumped at the opportunity to marry James, and of course she had wanted Sarah and George safely out of the way. Only at the trial had Sarah learned that Hannah had never been able to conceive—the surgeon who carried out the postmortem gave evidence that, very unusually, she had no uterus. So she had nothing to offer. No looks, no prospect of childbearing—nothing except her money, and even that was less than she claimed.

  Sarah was roused from her thoughts by a change in the atmosphere of the room. Looking about, she saw that the two turnkeys had disappeared. In their absence, the women had begun to murmur to one another and had largely left off their work. The mangles stood motionless and vats had been left untended. It was too quiet.

  With a jolt, she realized that someone was standing directly behind her. Before she had a chance to turn, she felt hands on her neck and on her shoulders, and she was thrust head-first into the filthy brown murk of the vat before her. Sarah struggled and twisted but hands held her down beneath the surface of the water until her chest ached. Abruptly, she was hauled back up where she gasped desperately for air, then forced deep down again, her mouth and lungs full of the dirty soapy water as she panicked and thrashed. Again, she was dragged back up and again she was held under, until she could no longer stop herself from trying to breathe, and her mouth opened and, in desperation, she sucked water into her lungs.

  Eventually came a moment of calm: I will die, she thought. I will die not at the end of the rope, but here, drowned in the dirt of other prisoners.

  She was pulled back and dropped onto the ground, where she lay choking, coughing, flailing. She managed to crawl onto her hands and knees and retched onto the floor. Once she could breathe again, she saw before her two black boots. Peering up, past the sodden woolen stockings and brown dress, she saw Rook’s face, strands of greasy black hair plastered across her forehead and a malevolent smile on her lips.

  Someone else was behind her, Boltwood presumably. Sarah pulled herself unsteadily to her knees, her hand on the side of the laundry vat, her chest heaving.

  The other prisoners stood motionless, watching her, before they returned silently to their tasks.

  Sarah was soaked through, her clothing heavy and clinging to her skin. She felt Rook’s eyes run over her frame.

  “No one threatens me,” Rook hissed. “Especially not a dissembling whore like you. You think you can frighten me into keeping quiet? The only reason I haven’t spilled your secrets already is because I’m keeping you here, to play with.”

  Rook bent down and brought her face close to Sarah’s, so close that she could see the tiny blood vessels in the whites of her eyes.

  “But I’m getting tired of you, Gale. So sooner or later,” she whispered, “I’ll finish you.”

  21

  “Ding, dong, darrow,

  The cat and the sparrow;

  The little dog has burnt his tail,

  And he shall be hang’d tomorrow.”

  —The Nursery Rhymes of England, 1842

  Edmund stared at the haddock on the plate before him. The report for the Home Secretary was due in two days’ time and he had still not determined what he would say. Anxiety constricted his chest and he had no appetite for his breakfast. He pushed his plate away, the food virtually untouched.

  Bessie looked up. “Edmund, are you unwell?”

  “No, my dear. I’m just a little distracted.”

  “It’s this case, isn’t it?” she said, removing the bone from her own fish. “You’ve gotten too close to it.”

  “A woman’s life is in my hands, Bessie. You expect me to remain unmoved?”

  “No, of course not, and it must be very difficult for you,” she said stiffly. “Only…you must retain a distance, mustn’t you? You’re the investigator, not her lawyer, after all. And she did get herself into this situation, whichever way you look at it.”

  “How sisterly of you, Bessie, to have such sympathy for Miss Gale’s plight.”

  Bessie frowned at him. “Maybe you should stop feeling so sorry for your Miss Gale and have a thought for poor Hannah Brown. It seems to me she’s been entirely forgotten in this whole business.”

  “And maybe you should refrain from giving advice on subjects you know nothing about.”

  “Edmund, please don’t patronize me. The whole of London knows about your case: it’s been all over the newspapers. I can have an opinion on it just as anyone else can.”

  “I am simply saying that you cannot judge the situation without knowing the full facts.”

  “But even you don’t know the full facts. You’ve told me as much yourself. Which is why it’s all the more important that you retain your distance.”

  “First my father seeks to advise me on my investigatory role, now you. How fortunate I am to be surrounded by such experts.”

  “Edmund, it is simply that I know how you are when you want to believe something, when you want something to work.”

  “Bessie, I work as hard as I can to make things happen. There was a time when you admired me for that, but perhaps you have forgotten.”

  Bessie’s cheeks grew pink. “I still admire you, Edmund,” she said quietly, “but I also worry about you. I worry about us.”

  “If you are worried about our financial situation, I appreciate you are used to better, but I have told you that things will improve. It is merely that I can’t take on more work until this case is over. And it soon will be.”

  “Edmund, you misunderstand me. I admire your zeal, truly I do, but I worry that you have been drawn in by this woman, that you are helping her for the wrong reasons.”

  Edmund regarded her coolly. “Have you been speaking to my father?”

  “What?”

  “Have you been speaking to my father about this?”

  “Well, I spoke to him briefly. He called the other day when you were out, as I told you.”

  “And you discussed my case.” He could imagine them together, sipping tea, agreeing on his shortcomings.

  “Among other things, yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  Edmund stood up. “No, I don’t suppose you do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking my coffee to my room. I have work to do.”

  • • •

  In his study, he went back through his notes, reread the police file, and wrote up a list of witnesses and key figures, summarizing what each had told him and what it m
eant for the case. Although he had made considerable progress, he was still missing key information. He had been unable to trace the witnesses who claimed to have heard arguing on the night of Hannah Brown’s death, and, despite speaking to numerous people in the area, he still had no solid piece of evidence that could of itself undermine the pronouncement of the court. The Home Secretary had made clear he would require some convincing before he overrode the guilty verdict.

  The problem was Sarah. She had not, as he originally feared, refused to talk to him. Going back through his notebook, he acknowledged that over the course of their interviews she had told him a great deal. But she had refused to shift from her position that she simply did not know anything about the murder, a position that had become increasingly untenable as the fuller picture emerged. Edmund was convinced that Sarah knew of the murder but that Greenacre had terrified her into remaining silent, and, somehow, was continuing to suppress her. He felt he was getting close, however. He just had to reel her in, as one might a fish, keeping the line taut so she did not spit out the hook.

  Shortly before eleven o’clock, Flora entered the room in a stained apron. She had grown even grubbier and surlier in the past few weeks, but no more sober. “A Mr. Spints for you. Or maybe Spanks. Says you’ll know who ’e is.”

  Edmund found the Home Secretary’s clerk standing in the parlor, his complexion tinged a sickly green by the turquoise walls. For a moment, Edmund saw his home through the clerk’s eyes: the sad display of peacock feathers over the mantelpiece, the faded silk flowers on the rosewood table, the terrible shabbiness of the place.

  “I do apologize for intruding, Mr. Fleetwood, but I have some information that I thought I should pass to you as soon as possible.”

  Edmund forced his mouth into a smile. “Oh, you’re not intruding. What information do you have for me?”

  “It’s been brought to my attention that there was a witness who gave evidence at Walworth police station who has subsequently disappeared. He did not therefore provide a statement to the magistrates.” Spinks passed Edmund some papers. “These are the original notes. A boy called Thomas Clissold told the police that on the 26th of December, Greenacre approached him in Bowyer Lane and asked him if he wanted a job. He was then tasked with collecting Greenacre’s belongings and taking them to the docks. You’ll find the relevant paragraph on the second page. Here.” Spinks pointed to the passage with a fingernail yellowed by tobacco.