The Unseeing

by Anna Mazzola

  This time it was Edward’s turn to remain quiet.

  “It would be the same sentence, wouldn’t it?” Rosina said, opening her eyes. “Both people would be transported or imprisoned. Perhaps”—here her voice broke—“both would be hanged.”

  Edmund ran his hand over his face. She was right. For this time the jury would know for sure that Sarah had concealed the crime. This time they would know that she had sat through the original trial and kept quiet about everything she knew. She would hang.

  Something of his distress must have shown on his face, because Rosina said urgently, “There’s no need for you to change your report. Sarah’s already on the boat. It’s all already been decided.”

  “On the basis of a lie!”

  She shrank away from him.

  “How? How did it happen? How could it possibly have happened?”

  He had spoken in a raised voice and Rosina glanced over at the two girls who were still playing near the flowerbeds.

  For a few moments, she did not speak. “Supposing…” she said finally, “supposing I had gone to James’s house on Christmas Eve.”

  “Yes?”

  “Supposing Sarah had specifically told me not to interfere, but I’d been unable to simply do nothing. I’d done nothing before, you see, when Sarah needed my help. Supposing I’d been so angry with that wretched man who had put her and George out on the streets in the middle of winter. After everything he’d put her through, after every mean thing he’d done, making her believe they might one day marry, keeping her ashamed and afraid and isolated.” Rosina looked at him. “You remember what it was like then, don’t you? Freezing and wet, and they had nowhere to go. I was living in as a governess so they couldn’t stay with me. Instead, they ended up in that hovel in Walworth, surviving on the crumbs he gave her. And then, on Christmas Eve—on Christmas Eve of all days—he tells her he’s cutting off all financial assistance. He won’t even pay for the lodging house. And he tells her it’s because of Hannah Brown.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “James told Sarah that Hannah had insisted that he stop providing her with any help. He said she’d made it a condition of going through with the marriage: she didn’t want him supporting another woman and her child, not even for a few weeks while Sarah got back on her feet, not even if it meant they starved. So supposing by the time I got to the house, I wasn’t thinking rationally. Supposing I intended to give James a piece of my mind—tell him all the things I’d wanted to say to him for so long.”

  “And supposing he wasn’t there,” Edmund said.

  “Yes. And supposing Hannah Brown was. She wouldn’t have been very pleased to see me, would she? Especially if James and she had been fighting, and especially if James had told her that it was because of Sarah that he was leaving her.”

  “I imagine she would be very distressed,” Edmund said carefully.

  “You would imagine that, yes,” said Rosina. Her cheeks were flushed pink now and she spoke more rapidly. “You’d imagine, wouldn’t you, that she’d be tear-stained and distraught, with her clothes all disarranged, so that if I asked her where James was, she’d say he was probably with my sister and that she was welcome to him. She’d probably say that my sister was a bitch and a whore and a devilish sly one at that.”

  “Why would she say that, Rosina?”

  “Because James had said that it was Sarah who told him about Hannah claiming credit in his name at that shop. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t true—that Sarah wouldn’t have done that—but she wouldn’t listen; she just kept on about Sarah having ruined everything for her and about it being Sarah’s fault that James had broken off the marriage. I couldn’t help it; I lost my patience with her then. I told her that it was nothing to do with my sister—that if James had ended their relationship it was because he’d come to his senses and realized she was a dried-up old washerwoman, and that no amount of money would make it worth his while. Such cruel things I said, but I believed, you see, that it was her who’d ensured that George and Sarah were cast out.”

  “And was it?”

  Rosina shook her head. “I don’t know. I believed it then, but now I wonder whether it was just something James said to upset Sarah.”

  Edmund saw it now. Greenacre had set the women against each other, stoking the flames so that they would hate one another, all because of him.

  “What happened then?” he said.

  “I’m not sure what it was in particular that I said to set her off. I thought at the time she must have been drunk, but maybe it was just anger at having lost out on her one chance to be married. Maybe it was when I told her that, due to her, poor little George was going hungry, and how would she feel if that were her own child? It wasn’t until the trial that I realized that of course she couldn’t have children of her own.

  “At all events, she threw herself at me. It seems ridiculous now, thinking of it. I can’t quite understand how we went from just shouting to grappling, clinging to each other like strange dancers. Hannah somehow got her hands around my throat and I tried to pry her hands away but I couldn’t, and I couldn’t breathe—so I began instead to kick and kick at her legs until they gave way. She came down forward then, on top of me, and”—here Rosina put her hands to her head—“well, at the same time I managed to wriggle free from her grip and move sideways and then…and then we came crashing to the ground. I fell badly, onto my shoulder, but managed to get myself up and away from her.” Rosina exhaled and let her arms fall to her sides. “I saw then that her body was wrong somehow, like a puppet dropped on the floor, the legs at odd angles. She was making a low groaning sound and, as I pulled her back, there came a noise that was somewhere between a grunt and a rush of air. That’s when I saw her face. I saw what I’d done.”

  Edmund waited.

  Rosina was looking away from him, toward the stained glass windows of the church. “She’d fallen onto the coal box, you see, and the handle had pierced her eye.” She shuddered at the memory of it. “A mess of red and white, blood and bone. The other eyelid was still half-open, but the eye itself was unseeing—blind.

  “I told myself she was just stunned. I shook her, I spoke to her sharply, I splashed a cup of water in her face to try to revive her, but it only dripped from her chin, the water droplets mixed with the blood.”

  Rosina was speaking almost in a whisper now. “I thought of calling for a physician, but suspected it was too late. I thought briefly of running for a police constable, but I…well, I knew what that would mean. I stood there for a long while in a sort of daze, and then I thought I heard the sound of footsteps on the path.”

  “And you ran.”

  Rosina hung her head. “Yes. I took one last look at Hannah, sprawled across the stone floor, and left by the back door.”

  For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  “Was Hannah Brown dead when you left her?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What did you think would happen after you left?”

  “I assumed James would raise the alarm: fetch a surgeon or a constable but of course he didn’t.”

  Edmund nodded. “Because he knew how it would look.”

  “I don’t think he was even sure what to make of it himself,” Rosina said. “He told Sarah he didn’t think he was responsible, but he wasn’t certain. He’d given Hannah a beating, remember, and his memory of the whole thing was clouded by liquor.”

  “And of course Sarah did nothing to dispel his fear that it was his doing.”

  Rosina’s gaze wandered uneasily. “I don’t know what Sarah said to James when they were alone. And I don’t know what he did when he was alone with Hannah. It’s possible she was still alive when I left and he himself finished her.”

  Edmund shivered at the memory of Dr. Girdwood’s words: “Greenacre slit the woman’s throat shortly after death—possibly while she wa
s still alive.”

  “And Sarah knew. You told her everything.”

  Rosina did not reply.

  “Is that why she agreed to take Greenacre back?” Edmund asked. “So she could convince him of his guilt and ensure that he disposed of the body?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Sarah went back to him because, for reasons I can’t begin to understand, she still loved him, or felt something for him. By the time she returned to his house, he’d removed all signs of what had happened. We knew he must have disposed of the body, but we didn’t know how he’d done it. When the papers started reporting the discovery of the body pieces, we suspected, we feared, but Sarah didn’t know for certain until the police told her.”

  That fitted. That would explain why Sarah was so distressed when she was arrested; that and the struggle she must have had in her own mind as to whether to allow the blame for the murder to be pinned on Greenacre.

  “And then she kept quiet about what she knew in order to protect you,” Edmund said.

  Rosina lowered her eyes. “You mustn’t think it was easy for her, or that she approved of what I’d done, but, well, we’ve always looked after one another. And it wasn’t exactly as though James had treated her well.”

  “No,” Edmund said. “He’d treated her very badly, in fact, and now this was to be his punishment.”

  Rosina looked up quickly. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “No? It seems to me that it was the perfect solution to allow Greenacre to take the blame. After all, it was he, wasn’t it, who set Hannah and Sarah against each other? He told Sarah that it was because of Hannah that he was throwing her and George out without any money, and he told Hannah that it was because of Sarah that he was calling off the marriage.”

  Greenacre had played a game, Edmund thought. A game that had gone disastrously wrong, leaving a woman dead and himself in the frame for her murder.

  “I never meant for any of this,” Rosina was saying. “I only ever meant to speak out on behalf of Sarah, and I’ve ended up destroying everything for her, for me, for George.”

  Edmund did not respond. She looked at him. “Could you just say that it was me? That Sarah had nothing to do with it? She’s already been through so much. She doesn’t deserve any of this.”

  “You think I can simply lie to the authorities to protect Sarah?”

  “Well, what purpose would be served by telling them? It won’t save anyone; it won’t help anyone. It won’t bring Hannah Brown back. It will just be another needless death.”

  “It’s not for me to decide,” he said shortly. “The most that I can do is ask that they take pity on Sarah.”

  “Oh, and you think they will listen to you? Did they do as you asked last time?”

  Edmund felt his cheeks grow hot.

  “I don’t care anymore what happens to me,” Rosina continued, “but I care very much what becomes of Sarah and George. She didn’t ask for this—she was just trying to protect me. And George—Mr. Fleetwood, he’s just a child.”

  Edmund turned away from Rosina. “This is not my fight,” he said, not looking at her. “You have to live with the consequences of your actions.”

  “I know that, and I am—I have been for many months—but you’ll also have to live with the consequences of yours, and one of them will be that George is left at the mercy of the Parish.”

  Edmund said nothing, but his mind was summoning up images of the workhouse, of a tiny coffin.

  “Promise me that you’ll look after him,” Rosina said. “If you must do as you claim, then please tell me that you’ll make sure he’s provided for.”

  “You cannot bargain with me. You cannot make any demands of me! I am the investigator. My duty—”

  “Was to investigate Sarah’s petition,” she interrupted him. “And you did that. You completed your report and you sent it to the Home Secretary and he made his decision and now Sarah and George are on a boat ready to travel to Australia. None of that needs to change. Please. Please.” She put out her hand as if to touch him, but then, perhaps seeing the look in his eye, let it drop. “You’re a good man, Mr. Fleetwood. Your father’s done nothing for George, but I know you will.”

  A cold feeling ran through him. “What do you mean by that?”

  “George: he’s your father’s son. Your half brother.”

  Edmund stared at her. Of course. That was who George reminded him of: Clem. He looked like Clem. Darker and thinner, but the same sharp chin, the same lips, the same large knowing eyes.

  • • •

  Edmund walked back to his chambers like a blind man, almost unaware of where he was going.

  What on earth was he to do now? If he failed to report Sarah and Rosina, he would be in grave professional jeopardy, but if he informed the Home Secretary of his findings, it was quite possible that both would be hanged, leaving all alone the boy who it now transpired was his brother.

  When Edmund arrived at his chambers, he found them unnaturally silent. The shutters had not been closed, there were no voices in the nursery, and no candles had been lit in the hallway. By the time he opened the door to his study, he knew with a cold and heavy certainty what he would find there. On his desk, propped up against his copy of The Law of Evidence, was a card.

  Edmund,

  I do not know what is happening to you. I have tried to understand but, time and again, you have shut me out. I cannot and will not put up with your behavior. I have taken Clem away for a time. I will contact you when I feel able to do so.

  Flora has left, having not been paid for over a month. She seems to have taken the cutlery in lieu of payment.

  Do not try and look for us. You will not find us.

  Your wife, Elizabeth

  Edmund sank down into his chair, his head bowed forward. He could not blame Bessie; he had associated her with his father and, in so doing, had begun to act like him. He raised the card to his face. It smelled faintly of carnations.

  • • •

  When Morris entered the room the following morning, Edmund was lying across his desk with the side of his face resting on a partially written report.

  “A late night, sir?”

  Edmund sat up abruptly. There was a blotch of black ink on his cheek. His jaw ached and his mouth felt like the inside of an old glove. He tried to reply, but no words came.

  Morris eyed the half-empty decanter on Edmund’s table. “I ’ave just the thing.”

  He disappeared and returned a short while later holding two metal cups, one of which he stirred and passed to Edmund.

  Edmund sipped at the concoction and gagged. “For the love of God, what is this?”

  “The solution to all your problems.”

  “If only that were true, Morris.” He looked at the dark liquid swirling in the cup. It smelled of peppermint and nutmeg with a whiff of something metallic.

  “Private issues, Mr. Fleetwood?” Morris sat on the edge of the desk.

  Edmund frowned. “I’ve been carrying out some further investigations.”

  “Regarding our Miss Gale?”

  “Yes, regarding Miss Gale.” Edmund pressed his palm against his forehead. “It transpires that she has not been entirely truthful with me.”

  Morris cocked his head to the side as a bird might do. “Not truthful about what, exactly?” He threw back the liquid in his own cup and grimaced.

  “Let us just say that her original conviction was probably correct, albeit for the wrong reasons.”

  Morris gave a low whistle. “And you think she should be punished?”

  “No, Morris. I don’t think that, as it happens. But it’s not for me to decide. Justice requires that I inform the Home Secretary of my findings.”

  “Does it?” Morris raised his eyebrows. “I always thought justice meant giving people what they deserve.” He paused. “Bu
t then I’m not a lawyer. I leave the law business to you gentlefolk.”

  “Yes,” Edmund said uncertainly, toying with the metal cup.

  Morris got up, tipped his hat, and went toward the door. “You ’ave a little ink, sir. On your cheek. You may want to look in your shaving mirror.”

  Edmund rubbed his face and called him back. “You understand we haven’t just had this conversation.”

  “Mr. Fleetwood, as you know, I see nothing, I hear nothing.”

  • • •

  By the afternoon, Edmund had nearly finished his letter to the Home Secretary. In the kitchen, he found the heel of a stale loaf, which he toasted over the fire with one of the few remaining forks and ate with some Dutch cheese, swallowing it down with a glass of port. The many previous drafts of his letter burned in the grate. There was a knock at the front door, which, given Flora’s departure, he knew he would have to answer himself.

  When Edmund pulled open the door, he was surprised to see his father, looking uncharacteristically disheveled. He could smell the tobacco on his clothes, his hair.

  For a moment Edmund simply stared at him, and then said, coldly: “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Right. Anything else?”

  His father glanced nervously about him before saying in a low voice, “Sarah had nothing to do with your appointment. She had no idea that’s what I intended to do. She certainly didn’t ask for it.”

  “Then why interfere?” Edmund said at normal volume.

  “I was trying to help.”

  “No, you were trying to protect your own reputation.”

  “That’s not true, Edmund. I felt I owed it to her to try to assist her.”

  “By using me.”

  His father glanced again about the lane. “May I come in?”

  “You may not.”

  “Edmund, this is ridiculous.”

  “No, what is ridiculous is how you’ve behaved. What is ridiculous is you having kept your wife in misery and near poverty as a punishment for her ‘downfall,’ while you lived with a woman you yourself have called a prostitute. What is ridiculous is how you then left that woman and your own son in penury rather than acknowledge them.”