Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Other books by Margarita Morris
Dedication
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Scarborough Fair 2: Scarborough Ball
Thank you for reading
Acknowledgements
SCARBOROUGH FAIR
Margarita Morris
This novel is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Margarita Morris asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Cover design by L1graphics at 99designs.com
Copyright Margarita Morris 2016
All Rights Reserved
margaritamorris.com
JOIN MY MAILING LIST
If you would like to receive news about new books, promotions and giveaways, please join my mailing list. Thank you.
Mailing List
OTHER BOOKS BY MARGARITA
Scarborough Ball
A party should be fun. Not a matter of life and death.
1923. A shocking event happens at the New Year’s Eve Ball.
2016. Rose and Dan are still not safe. Someone wants revenge.
Oranges for Christmas
Berlin 1961. The War is over.
But for Sabine the fight for freedom has only just begun.
The Sleeping Angel
Something is astir in Highgate Cemetery.
The dead want justice and so do the living.
FIND MARGARITA ONLINE
Website:
http://margaritamorris.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/margaritamorrisauthor
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MargaritaMorris
For Thomas and Oliver
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
Early 16th century. (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations)
~~~
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Shakespeare: Julius Caesar; Act 1, Scene 2.
~~~
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there,
She once was a true love of mine.
Traditional English ballad.
Prologue
19th August, 1899
I am not insane. I was brought here under false pretences. Henry told Dr Collins that I am delusional, that I had tried to harm myself. He showed Dr Collins the wound on my arm, saying that it was self-inflicted and that I would have done worse if he, Henry, had not been there to prevent it. He always likes to portray himself as the hero, a knight in shining armour, when in truth he is nothing but a deadly serpent, full of lies and rotten to the core. I tried to protest but was too shocked, and weak from the loss of blood and I fear I may have come across as confused and incoherent which did not help my case.
“You have done the right thing in bringing her to us,” said Dr Collins to Henry in what seemed to me a conspiratorial manner. The doctor, a balding man with a pointed nose and penetrating eyes, regarded me with curiosity as if I were a specimen in a museum. “We will see that she receives the very best medical care. However, the mind is a delicate organ and I should warn you that her treatment may take some time.”
“Take as long as you need,” said Henry. “My only wish is that she should be returned to me in full health and in possession of her wits.”
Doctor Collins started explaining to Henry the latest techniques that he would use in my treatment. I understood little of what he said. It was the words “returned to me” that struck a note of dread in my heart. I was Henry’s possession and he would have me back once I had been brought to heel. My own wishes were of no consequence.
Doctor Collins picked up a little brass bell from his desk and rang it vigorously. Moments later two stout-looking women in nurses’ uniforms entered the room. Fishwives, the pair of them, they both had strong arms, rough hands and unsmiling faces.
“Nurse Barrett, Nurse Cooper,” said Dr Collins, addressing each of them in turn. “Please admit Miss Hawthorne to the women’s ward.”
As the nurses approached, I roused myself from my stupor. “You can’t do this to me!” I shouted at Henry, but my voice came out more like a whimper.
“It’s for your own good, Alice,” he said, turning his back on me and staring out of the window.
The nurses took hold of my upper arms, one on each side of me. The wound on my left arm throbbed painfully at Nurse Cooper’s tight grip. They pulled me to my feet. I tried to resist but they were too strong for me.
“I hate you,” I hissed at Henry as the nurses dragged me away. Henry refused to turn around or even acknowledge that he had heard me.
The nurses led me down the corridor and up a flight of stairs to the bathroom, a cold, tiled room with a row of sinks along one wall and three bath tubs lined up on the opposite side. I had never before seen a bathroom more lacking in privacy.
“Ge’ yer togs off,” said Nurse Barrett. She spoke in an abrupt Yorkshire dialect and when I looked at her questioningly she pulled at my clothes so that I understood she expected me to undress. Shocked by this request, I hesitated. She clucked her tongue in impatience and went to unfasten the buttons on the back of my dress.
I recoiled from her touch, but Nurse Cooper held me firm by the shoulders. “I’ve ’eld down lasses bigger’n you,” she said, “so you can stop yer faffin’.” I stared at her in fright.
Nurse Barrett yanked at the buttons of my gown, not caring if she tore the fabric. One of the buttons popped off and rolled away into a corner. Between them they pulled the black dress over my head and tossed it on the floor.
“Ooh, ge’ a gander a’ that,” said Nurse Cooper, fingering the jet necklace that hung around my neck. It had been hidden under my gown so not even Henry had noticed it. Especially not him. “’Ow much di’ tha’ cost yer? From a fancy man, were it?” I tried to swat her hand away from my neck, but she grabbed hold of my wrists, gripping them so hard that I winced. “Take it off,” she said to Nurse Barrett. Nurse Barrett undid the clasp and dropped the necklace onto the floor next to the dress. I suppressed a sob. I didn’t want these women to know how much that necklace meant to me.
With my dress off, the wound on my upper arm was now revealed in all its goriness. The blood had spread onto my chemise and stained the white cotton a deep red colour. “We’ll ’ave to burn this shimmy,” said Nurse Barrett, pulling the fabric off the wound where it had stuck and causing a fresh trickle of blood to run down my arm. Neither nurse was concerned to tend to the wound itself.
Nurse Cooper went to the nearest bath tub and turned on the taps. There was a sharp sound of metal grinding against metal and then water spluttered into the tub with a deep-throated gurgling noise as if it was being drawn from the belly of the building.
“Ge’ yer kegs off,” commanded Nurse Barrett, folding her arms across her ample chest. This time I understood her only too well. She expected me to remov
e my underclothes. “What?” she scoffed. “Y’ain’t shy are yer?”
I glanced at the door, which they’d left ajar. For a brief moment I saw myself making a run for it, but where could I go dressed in nothing but my drawers, corset and chemise?
“Flippin’ ’eck,” said Nurse Barrett, losing patience. She untied my corset, dragged the chemise over my head, and ripped off my bloomers and stockings. I was shaking more from shock and humiliation than from the cold. I hung my head, covering my face with my hands.
“Get in’t tub,” said Nurse Cooper.
I stepped gingerly into the water. I needn’t have worried about it being too hot. It was barely lukewarm. I gasped in surprise as Nurse Cooper’s rough hands pushed me down into the water. “Righ’ under,” she said, forcing me down beneath the surface. I struggled against her hands, thinking she meant to drown me, but she let go immediately and I came up spluttering and choking.
“On yer feet,” ordered Nurse Cooper. I stood, shivering, and she handed me a thin bar of rock-hard carbolic soap. “Cover thissen in that.”
I rubbed the soap in my hands, trying in vain to produce a decent lather. My hands shook so badly that more than once I dropped the soap and had to fish for it in the rapidly cooling water. My only thought was, the sooner I get this bath over, the better. When I was covered in a thin lather from my shoulders to my knees, Nurse Cooper picked up a long-handled brush and scrubbed me as if she were spring cleaning the pantry. I winced as the brush skimmed over the torn flesh of my arm. She pushed me under the water one more time to rinse off, but this time I was ready for her, holding my breath and squeezing my eyes tight shut.
“That weren’t so bad, were it?” said Nurse Barrett, as I stepped, dripping, onto the cold, tiled floor. I could have sworn she was laughing at me. She rubbed me dry with a threadbare towel, then went over to a row of lockers and came back with a pile of clothing.
“I’m not wearing that,” I said, staring aghast at the coarsely woven, blue smock dress that she held in her hands.
“Ooh, ’oity-toity,” said Nurse Cooper. “Yeh’ll wear wha’ yer given and stop yer mitherin’.” She handed me a pair of greying bloomers from the pile. “Or yeh can go round in yer birthday suit. Tha’ll give the male patients summat to talk ’bout.” They both laughed at her cruel joke and I felt myself colouring. All the clothes were too big for me but that didn’t seem to matter to the nurses. Nurse Cooper pulled the shapeless, woollen dress over my head and handed me a pair of black boots to wear. Then they each took hold of an elbow and walked me up another flight of stairs and down a corridor, unlocking and locking doors behind them as we went.
We came to a large room with a dozen beds in it, six along one wall and six along the opposite side. The room was full of women, all wearing identical clothes to the ones I had been given. Some were sitting on their beds, not doing anything; one was marching up and down the centre of the room, talking to herself. When she saw me being brought in she shouted at the top of her voice, “Ooh, a new lady. Looks like she thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba!” A few of the women sitting on the beds lifted their heads to look at me, but most of them just ignored her.
“Tha’s yer bed,” said Nurse Barrett, pointing to an empty bed in the corner of the room. They exchanged a few words with the nurse in charge of the dormitory, then they left me there. The woman who was talking to herself came over and prodded me on the shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“That’s what they all say,” she said. She laughed in a high-pitched cackle before resuming her pacing.
I curled up on the bed and turned my back on them all.
This is where I am now. I must escape from this place by whatever means. Or die trying.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
Rose stretched and yawned, staring out of the car window at the miles of endless countryside spread out under an ominously grey sky. It was just her and her mum in the car and topics of conversation, mostly to do with school and what her friends were doing this summer, had dried up barely twenty minutes into the journey, before they were even out of London and on the motorway.
Rose had no wish to be reminded of her friends’ holiday plans, it only made the prospect of her own summer seem even more dismal. Kate would be sunning herself on the gloriously hot Amalfi coast and attracting oodles of attention from gorgeous Romeo types eager to lavish her with platefuls of Italian food. Holly would be zooming around New York in one of those yellow taxis, eating bagels and taking selfies from the top of the Empire State Building. As for Joe, well at least he was getting to stay in London and could hang out and have a good time. Go to a club, hear a gig.
Meet other girls.
Stop it, she told herself. Just because their last date had been a bit tense, didn’t mean it was over between them, did it? They’d been going out for six months and during that time had had a lot of fun together. It was only in the last couple of weeks that Rose had detected a coolness which she had put down to the pressure of exams. She had assumed it would disappear once the exams were out of the way, but it hadn’t and that worried her. For what must be the hundredth time that journey she tapped the screen of her phone to see if she still had a signal. She did. So why hadn’t he replied to any of her last three texts? Was he just busy or was he deliberately ignoring her? A knot of anxiety tightened in the pit of her stomach.
At the roundabout, take the first turning on the left.
The calm tones of the female SatNav voice jolted Rose back to the present. They’d been on the same road for absolutely ages, stuck behind a tractor for the last five miles. Andrea, her mother, was the sort of driver who never risked overtaking on country roads even though other vehicles had overtaken them and the tractor. It drove Rose mad and had accounted in large part for the silence that had descended. It was saying something when the SatNav was the chattiest person in the car.
“Nearly there,” said her mum. She sounded like she was trying hard to be upbeat, but Rose could hear the tiredness in her voice. Well, that was hardly surprising after all this driving. Over five hours so far, due to endless roadworks on the motorway and slow-moving farm vehicles on the country roads. A quick glance at the SatNav perched on the dashboard told Rose they still had another forty minutes to go. Hardly nearly there.
They had escaped London - her mum always talked of escaping London as if it was a prison and not one of the most exciting cities in the world - at eight o’clock that morning after loading the car with enough stuff to see them through the whole summer in Scarborough, some two hundred and fifty miles away on the North Yorkshire coast. Andrea had wanted to set off early so she could “take her time” with the driving. “Now that your father isn’t here…” she’d said, her voice still tinged with bitterness.
Rose had noticed that ever since the divorce, Dad had become your father as if Rose was somehow responsible for what he got up to. Not that he was showing many signs of being responsible for her. By now he’d be somewhere in the south of France with Shona, his new girlfriend. The invitation for Rose to join them (from Shona) had been so half-hearted that Rose had declined it without hesitation. So here she was with her mum on their way to her gran’s house, the option of Rose staying behind in London being, in her mum’s words, unthinkable.
“First one to see the sea!” said her mother in her best jolly aren’t-we-having-fun voice.
“Mu-um! For goodness sake, I’m sixteen, not six.”
“Sorry,” said her mother, making Rose feel bad that she wasn’t more enthusiastic about this holiday. As a little girl, going to her gran’s house at the seaside had been the best thing ever: building sandcastles with a bright red bucket and spade; donkey rides; humongous amounts of ice cream; paddling in the sea. And, was it just her rose-tinted memory, but hadn’t the weather always been hot and sunny when she was little?
They arrived in the town just as it started to drizzle, a thin grey rain that looked like t
he harbinger of something more serious. Marvellous, thought Rose, regarding her shorts, bare legs and flip-flops. Welcome to the great British summer! In the rain, the red-brick Victorian terraces and corner shops looked even more drab and worn than Rose remembered them. They passed a laundromat and a grimy-looking tattoo parlour offering a two for the price of one sale on body piercings. The cinema was showing a film that Rose had seen in London two months ago. What on earth was she going to do for six whole weeks here?
In the past Gran had come down to London in the summer and looked after Rose whilst her mother went out to work at the solicitor’s where she was the secretary and indispensable chief organiser. But this year Andrea was taking the whole summer off whilst the offices were being refurbished and had insisted that they spend the time in Scarborough. Rose loved her grandmother dearly and was looking forward to seeing her, but having Gran visit them in London meant she could still see her friends and get on with her life.
Still no text from Joe.
“Now, Gran isn’t going to be up to much,” said her mother as if she was talking to an unruly child. “So don’t go wearing her out.”
“Of course not,” said Rose.
“She had a nasty fall last month. She was lucky she didn’t break anything. I’m going to try to persuade her to come and live with us in London. At her age she needs keeping an eye on and I can’t do that very well when she’s all the way up here.”
“Do you think she’ll agree?” asked Rose. Her grandmother knew her own mind and wasn’t afraid to make her opinions known. That was one of the things Rose loved best about her.
“We shall see,” said her mother through gritted teeth.
Scarborough Fair (Scarborough Fair series Book 1) Page 1