by Anna Mazzola
“Edmund, please keep your voice down.”
Edmund laughed. “And even now, all you care about is appearances. Well, you needn’t worry. I don’t plan on telling Lord Russell about your involvement with Miss Gale. It wouldn’t serve any purpose.”
“No. No, it wouldn’t, but I am grateful all the same.”
“Don’t be. It’s not for your sake that I’m keeping quiet about it.”
“For Sarah’s?”
“No, for my own. I’ve made enough of a fool of myself over this case. I don’t need the world to know that the only reason I was appointed was because my father was attempting to pervert the course of justice.”
His father seemed unable to find a response to this. He tapped his cane awkwardly on the ground. “Have you made up your mind as to what you will say about her?”
“I have.”
“And?”
“And you can read about it in the newspapers the same as everyone else. Good day, Father.”
Edmund shut the door and walked back up the stairs, feeling lighter than he had done all day.
44
“Presently the fox is thrown among the hounds, and soon torn limb from limb, and eaten. Such is the finale of this exciting sport, in which the energies of so many have been long engaged.”
—Manual of British Rural Sports, John Henry Walsh, 1856
“It’s all over, Lucy,” Sarah whispered as the two women sat side by side on her bunk, shrouded in the darkness of the orlop.
Earlier in the day, the cattle pens and poultry boxes had been loaded onto the ship—cows that snorted with fear and a swarm of squealing pigs, which seemed to know that they were doomed to die. Now, as night fell, Sarah heard the shrill scream of one of the pigs, perhaps being butchered for tomorrow.
“What are you talking about?” Lucy asked.
“Edmund—the lawyer—he knows now what happened on the night of Hannah Brown’s death. That’s why he came today.”
For a long time they sat silently amid the coughing and mutterings of the other women.
“What did happen, Sarah?”
Sarah looked at Lucy. In the dim light, she could just about make out her sharp features, the whites of her eyes. Could she tell her? She had kept her secret for so long—hardly even discussing it with her sister—that it seemed impossible to say the words.
“It was Rosina who killed Hannah,” Sarah said finally. “She didn’t mean to, but she did.” And once she had said it, the rest came out in a torrent: the growing hatred she had felt toward Hannah, the shame she had felt at living as an unmarried mother, James’s goading, her outpouring to Rosina on Christmas Eve. She had been sitting at the garret window watching the snowflakes falling, thinking about Hannah and James, when, in the yellow glow of the streetlamp, she saw a cloaked figure approach the house. She knew from the way the figure moved, hurriedly, head down, that it was her sister, and she had run down to let her in, before Rosina could knock. Her cuffs were red with blood, her cloak wet with the snow.
“She wouldn’t tell me at first what had happened, but I worked it out soon enough. I gave her one of my dresses to wear while I washed hers, but, though I scrubbed and scrubbed, the stains would not come out. In the end, I burned it in the grate. Rosina had to buy a new dress, which she could ill afford, but she would have lost her situation, of course, if she were not respectably dressed. That was why, later, I pawned Hannah Brown’s silk dresses. For the money. James had given them to me, saying that Hannah had left them in lieu of payment. But of course I knew what had really happened. I knew that I was pawning the possessions of a dead woman.” She closed her eyes. “I pawned her wedding dress, Lucy: the dress she never got to wear.” Beneath her closed lids she saw it again—red as ruby, red as blood.
“And it was because of me that she died.” Saying it aloud after all this time made it all seem suddenly real and clear, not the shadowy nightmare in which she had been living since that night.
“What d’you mean, because of you?”
“Rosina was angry on my behalf. She went to see James just after I told her that he’d cut me off, and that Hannah was the cause of it. If I hadn’t told her about what James and Hannah had said…if I’d left James long before, as I should have done, none of this would have happened. That’s why I say because of me. Because of me Hannah Brown died. Because of me Rosina will now hang. Because of me George will be left all alone.”
Lucy turned her face toward her and then looked away. In the half-light, Sarah could not interpret her expression.
“You remember that first night you spoke to me at Newgate?”
“Yes.”
“I was going out of my mind with despair in that awful place. I thought my baby had died ’cos of me.”
Sarah waited.
“And you helped me,” Lucy said. “You didn’t have to, but you spoke to me: you told me it weren’t my fault, that I shouldn’t feel guilty. Well, this weren’t your fault neither. It weren’t you who struck the woman, just as it weren’t me who stopped my baby’s heart. You’re a good person, Sarah.”
“Good? Lucy! How can you say that? After everything that’s happened? I concealed a woman’s death. I let James go to the gallows for it rather than speak out. Good! I am very far from good. I am bad to my very bones. Mr. Price saw it. The Ordinary saw it. Rook saw it, too.”
“Oh, and they know you, do they, those Prices and Cottons and Rookses? They can believe what they like, but they ain’t spoken to you like I have, have they? I know you, and I know how much you love your little boy and your sister. That’s why you did what you did, isn’t it?”
Sarah shook her head. “I allowed James to go to his death believing he might have killed Hannah, even after he himself insisted I’d had nothing to do with it all.”
“Why did he say that?”
“That was what we’d agreed. That was our contract. I would deny I knew anything about him beating Hannah or disposing of the body. He, in return, would state that I knew nothing about it. Of course, James didn’t know what had really happened. And he never knew that I didn’t keep my side of the deal.”
“It wasn’t much of a deal.”
“No, but still, he maintained until the very end that I played no part in the murder. I’m not sure why he did that. Maybe, after everything he’d done, he felt he owed me something.” Maybe, she thought, there had been a tiny sliver of goodness in him after all.
“And yet I let him hang in place of my sister.”
“He would have swung anyway, wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe. Probably. But there’s always that tiny possibility that he wouldn’t have. That he would have been reprieved, as I was. And the thing is, Lucy, I keep going back to that night, to the night she died, and trying to work out whether I could have done anything differently. Whether I should have told Rosina to go at once to the police; whether I should have told James what had happened; whether I should have reported it to the police myself. But of course I couldn’t have done any of those things. I couldn’t have done anything different from what I did.”
She imagined it as a dicebox that had been shaken and shaken and, each time, the numbers came out the same. It would always have ended like this.
“Maybe Mr. Fleetwood will see that,” Lucy said. “Maybe he’ll understand you didn’t have a choice.”
“But I did have a choice, Lucy. I had a choice as to what I did, and I had a choice as to what to say to Mr. Fleetwood, and I chose to deceive him. He was one of the very few people who tried to help me—who was willing to listen to me—and instead of trying to explain, I lied to him. I felt I had to. No, he won’t protect me now. He’s a proud man and I’ve tricked and humiliated him. Whether or not he believes it was my fault, he’ll make sure that I pay.”
• • •
After Lucy had gone to bed, Sarah lay on her bunk next to Ge
orge’s sleeping form, listening to the creaking of the ship and the lonely whine of the wind in the ropes. Maybe tomorrow they would come for her, to take her back to Newgate. Newgate, where Rook still waited, like a snake, coiled; where Miss Sowerton still presided. And she would no longer have Edmund to keep them at bay; she would no longer have his threats to stop Miss Sowerton from dragging her back to the dark cells or from simply unleashing Rook on her, like a dog at a rat. She was foolish to have feared the rope—to have imagined that the worst would be a slow strangulation before a crowd of thousands. She wouldn’t make it as far as the scaffold. She would die in the dark, alone.
And, when Miss Pike found that she had lied to her, would she keep her promise to help George? Would she pity the son when the mother had betrayed her, or would she simply leave him to his fate in a Parish workhouse? Sarah stroked George’s hair as he slept, knowing it might well be the last time she ever did so.
It was always the waiting that was the worst. She remembered lying in bed in the pink-papered room of her childhood, knowing that soon enough she would hear her father’s footsteps, the rustle of cotton as the sheet was pushed back. She remembered sitting alone in the kitchen at Carpenter’s Buildings waiting for James to return, wondering whether he would be inebriated but elated, or just drunk and vengeful. She remembered staying awake at night, crouched by George’s cot, convinced that tomorrow would be the day that she and James were arrested. She remembered staring from the window at the falling snowflakes, wishing that something would happen to prevent James from marrying Hannah. But she had not wished for that. She had not imagined a floor awash with blood, a body cut into pieces.
Maybe tomorrow they would come and end it all.
• • •
Edmund sat by a window in Peele’s Coffee House, watching drops of water trickle down the glass.
A waiter appeared with a cup of steaming coffee, which he set down before Edmund. Staring into the swirling black liquid, he rehearsed in his head what he would say to Lord Russell when he reached the Home Office with his new report.
“My lord, I am duty-bound to inform you that new information has come to light…”
“I regret that my original report was premised on facts that have since turned out to be incorrect…”
“Unfortunately, it seems that I was misled and, in turn, misled you…”
He took out his inkpot and pen and, on a sheaf of paper, jotted down a few alternatives, but none seemed to work. How to find the right words?
He took a sip of the hot coffee and sat for a minute staring at the raindrops; at the people rushing past outside, scowling into the wind and rain; at two small boys who had broken free of their nursemaid and who were jumping in puddles, laughing with pure joy.
Eventually, the words crystallized in his mind. Drawing out a new white sheaf of paper, he began to write.
45
“Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.”
—Psalm 51 (KJV)
There were now one hundred and twenty-nine convicts aboard the Henry Wellesley: lock-pickers and card sharpers, housebreakers and horse stealers, all crammed into the orlop for the last night before they left England.
Sarah had spent the day in a state of suspended terror, growing more nervous with each hour that passed. Why had they not yet come for her? Was the captain waiting until the last prisoners arrived from Newgate, so that she could be sent back at the same time? Or perhaps Edmund was punishing her by playing her as he believed she had played him: waiting until the very last minute to reel her back in.
As Sarah readied herself for bed among the low chatter of women and howling of infants, the message came. She was to attend the captain’s room.
This is it then, she thought. This is the beginning of the end. She was overcome by a great weariness, a feeling of leaden sadness that began as a heaviness in her chest and spread down her body. In the near darkness, she sank down on her bunk next to George’s sleeping form, all energy and spirit draining from her like the final grains of sand running through an hourglass. The captain must have received a letter from Edmund or a command from the Home Secretary himself. Either way, she was finished. They all were.
For several minutes she stayed by George, watching his chest rise and fall and breathing in his smell: warm milk and marine soap. She pressed her lips against his cheek. What would happen to him without her there to look after him? She had ruined everything—she had played it all wrong. In trying to save her sister, she had forfeited her son.
“I’m sorry, George,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
• • •
Sarah climbed the ladder to the main deck, her chest tight with fear.
On deck, everything was quiet and still. There was only the occasional cat’s paw of wind and the slosh of gentle waves slapping the boat. Even the stars had hidden, and the night was as black and wet as ink. Sarah stood outside the captain’s cabin, her heart pounding. She rested her closed fist against the door for a second and then knocked twice.
“Come in.”
When she pushed the door open a crack she saw only darkness. She pushed it farther and saw that the captain was sitting at a small wooden desk lit by a stump of candle in a pewter pot. He was making notes on a graph. As Sarah stepped through the entrance, the door swung shut behind her with a thud. The captain put down his pen and blinked.
“Well, don’t just stand there, woman. Come forward.” The candlelight illuminated his face from beneath, casting dark shadows under his cheekbones.
Sarah stood with her hands clasped behind her back, looking at the floor. She could tell he was appraising her.
“I have received a letter to pass to you,” he said. “As you are a convict, I was obliged to read it first.” He held the letter out and Sarah stepped forward to take it from him.
At first, Sarah was unable to focus on the words. Her hands shook violently despite her attempts to still them and the sentences were mere tangles of black ink lines on white. Gradually, she began to understand.
11 July 1837
Dear Miss Gale,
Having carefully reviewed the issues about which we spoke at our last meeting, I have come to the view that little purpose would be served by taking matters further. Arguably, they have gone far enough. As you yourself said, the case is closed. Ultimately, James Greenacre paid the price for his misdeeds.
Yours will not, I suspect, be the only eyes to read this letter. I will therefore say simply that you and your son have been forsaken and betrayed by many people and that I do not intend to add to their number. Heaven knows, I have already made enough mistakes.
I wish you and George the best for the voyage and for your new life in Australia. No doubt your skills as a nurse will be greatly valued there. I am sure that you realize how close you came to not having this opportunity. Make the most of it.
Yours very truly,
Edmund Fleetwood
Sarah felt heat rush to her face and a choking sensation in her throat. Was this another trap, or was he really letting her go? Her eyes glistened wet in the darkness like black opal. She realized that the captain was studying her. She turned her face away, afraid that the flush across her cheek would betray her.
“You’re a nurse?” he said.
It took a moment for her to understand that this was a question. Edmund’s words still swam before her eyes and blood roared through her head. “Yes,” she said eventually.
“You should be helping the surgeon then.”
Sarah pictured the knives glinting. The needles. She thought again of her mother’s sick chamber with its potions and powders.
“I’m not sure that the other women would be happy to be t
reated by me.”
“They’ll be grateful to be treated by anyone at all if they’re ill. You will report to the surgeon tomorrow for duty.”
Sarah nodded. “Yes, captain.”
“The letter,” he said. “Its meaning is not immediately clear to me. Presumably it is to you.”
Sarah said nothing.
He looked at her hard. “What did he mean by ‘taking matters further’?”
“I’m not quite sure,” she said. “Lawyers have a strange way of speaking.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yes, indeed. Almost a code, you might say.” He narrowed his eyes as though trying to make out something far away, and then waved his arm to indicate she was dismissed.
Sarah curtsied and walked back into the damp night air, fighting against a wave of relief and disbelief. She went to the gunwale, drew her cloak about her shoulders, and stared over the edge of the boat into the dark water. It was as though a weight was finally being lifted, leaving her light as a cinder: almost too light. She could not quite believe that Edmund had forgiven her despite everything she had done. Was he genuinely willing to let both her and her sister go free? Perhaps she had underestimated him. Perhaps he understood that no purpose would be served by punishing them further for a crime that had already taken two lives. Or maybe it was simply that he cared for her. And now she was leaving him behind.
As she stared at the dark water below, she thought of Hannah: Hannah Brown with her drab face and fancy clothes, who had wanted only to be loved, but who had been duped and used just as she had, and who had ended up bruised and bloodied on a cold stone floor. If only Sarah had understood. If only she had directed her hatred at the man who had sought to crush her rather than at the woman she saw as her rival. If she had spoken to Hannah—spoken to her truly—then they might have fought him together. They might have won.
The words returned to her from the captain’s sermon: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Could her own sins be washed away? Swallowed up by the great, deep ocean as they journeyed to Australia? As if in answer, the Thames glinted up at her, slate-gray and black.