The Poison Thread

by Laura Purcell

  Mim’s nostrils flared again, and her stance became rigid.

  ‘What is it?’

  The door answered me, banging back against the wall as if a gale had blown it in. Mrs Metyard stalked across the threshold, even taller and squarer than I remembered.

  ‘Where is she? Where is that villain, that vandal, who broke my china?’

  It wasn’t china – only an earthenware plate – but no one dared say that to Mrs Metyard. Not when she spoke in a voice sharp enough to flay skin from the bone.

  ‘Thought you could hide it, did you?’ She swept over and gripped Mim by the wrist. It was the right wrist, the side with the missing finger. ‘Thought I wouldn’t notice? Devious wretch!’

  ‘It was an accident!’ Mim asserted, but Mrs Metyard struck the words from her mouth.

  ‘There are no accidents, girl, only carelessness. You were born careless.’

  I could despise Mrs Metyard, storming and screeching like the witch from a pantomime. But when I saw Kate, lurking in the shadows by the door – that’s when I missed a breath.

  She was all eyes and cheekbones. Chilling in her lack of expression. The peacock-blue dress didn’t compliment her now. It was an incongruous thing, belonging to a different world; its bright colour grotesque against the sudden pallor of Kate’s skin.

  ‘Must I teach you again?’ Mrs Metyard went on. ‘Do you need the rules and regulations made clear?’

  ‘No,’ Mim said. Not a plea. I admired her for that.

  Kate was clutching something: it moved forwards and backwards, in slow, contracted waves beside her thigh.

  It was a poker. An iron poker fetched from a fireplace downstairs.

  ‘I’ll do it, Mother.’

  ‘Very well. Twenty lashes. It’s the only way they learn.’

  Kate sloped into the workroom, seizing Mim’s other wrist in her spare hand, so close to me I could have touched her. Lily of the valley wound up my nostrils, forced its way down my throat.

  ‘No!’ Mim cried.

  They dragged her from the room.

  Part of me expected the twins to laugh. They didn’t. Even when the door closed upon us and we heard the sound of Mim’s shoes, scraping across a distant floor. They were grave, staring at the wall.

  ‘They won’t hit her?’ I whispered. ‘I mean, not with that poker . . .’ A tingle, a ghost of feeling in my ribs. I thought Rosalind Oldacre’s boots had been bad.

  Daisy pushed back the wisps of hair that had fallen over her forehead. ‘Don’t fret yourself. The blackamoors don’t feel pain, not like we do.’

  It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. Slowly, I pushed up the caramel sleeve on my right arm. My hand was still a claw – I made it into a fist.

  ‘You did this. You and Ivy. You’re the reason Mim—’

  Nell touched my shoulder. ‘Better her than you.’

  I hated every one of them. If I could, I would have boxed their ears, but there was that tread upon the stairs again.

  Mrs Metyard reappeared. Her cheeks were flushed, her beady eyes sparkled.

  ‘Beg your pardon, Mrs Metyard, ma’am,’ said Nell. ‘It’s past eight. Shall I dismiss the girls, or is there something else we can assist you with?’

  Muscles relaxed in Mrs Metyard’s jaw. She looked more collected, more as she usually did. ‘As a matter of fact, Nelly, I had Lady Morton call on me today. The black satin and tulle must be finished by the end of this week.’

  ‘A . . . fortnight ahead of our schedule, I believe?’ Nell was dead of expression. Dead of tone. I wondered what else had died, in this place.

  A smile surfaced on Mrs Metyard’s lips. The lines by her chin puckered. ‘Just so. Fetch your embroidery needles, girls. It’s going to be a long night.’

  * * *

  After that, I didn’t care what I thought about while I sewed. Why shouldn’t Mrs Metyard’s clients see flashes of blood, or come up in the pox, if the girls who made their dresses were beaten black and blue?

  Poor Mim. I’d never seen someone hit with a poker before. Just the idea of it made my skin tender. Would Kate heat the poker and burn her with it? I wondered if a brand would come up different, on skin so dark.

  I soon found out.

  The next day started very much like the one before: up at dawn, waiting for Kate to unlock us, the empty buckets. The only difference was in me. Something had broken. I was soft; I couldn’t bear to see Mim suffer.

  I had to help her undress to wash. The cuts on her back had scabbed and dried the linsey nightgown to her skin. Scars cross-hatched her shoulders, silvery-white. This had happened before. Who’d helped her, when I wasn’t here? Had she struggled through alone?

  No sounds of pity came from the girls around us; there were no flinches or cries. For the first time, I dared to stare at them properly, naked as they were. But what I saw unpicked a stitch inside of me.

  They all wore scars of their own.

  19

  Ruth

  We were sitting in the kitchen, finishing off breakfast. I’d wolfed mine down in very few bites. Back home, I’d thought we were poor, but at least we had thicker slices of bread. You could feed a sparrow on what we ate at Metyard’s. The sparrow might turn his nose up, though.

  I’d just emptied my mug and placed it on the table when there came a smart rat-a-tat-tat. Nell jerked to attention. ‘That’s the tradesman’s door,’ she said.

  Mim’s eyebrows bunched together in dismay.

  ‘Hurry up, Miriam,’ Ivy sang. ‘You wouldn’t want to be neglecting your duties.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said.

  I dived off the bench before anyone could stop me.

  The tile floor was still damp. I picked my way over it, careful not to slip. It felt like ten years ago I’d shuffled into this room with Ma and wrinkled my nose at the smell.

  This person at the door, waiting for me . . . It couldn’t be Ma again, could it? Come back to say she’d made a terrible mistake?

  Praying with all my might, I opened up the door.

  It was Billy Rooker.

  I expect you’ve read about him in the paper. Maybe you’ve even seen a woodcut. I can’t say he was handsome, exactly, but he had a rugged charm. Rumpled hair, ill-concealed beneath his cap. Bright, blue eyes. Remarkable, the colour of them; they were the first thing you saw when you looked in his face. So very sharp. You could cut yourself on those eyes.

  ‘Hello.’ He offered a smile. It created a tiny dimple in his chin. ‘You’re new.’

  ‘I’m Ruth,’ I said, stupidly.

  ‘So you are. Billy Rooker.’

  He put out his hand. I shook it. I remember how warm it felt, encasing my bloodless fingers.

  ‘Can you help me then, Ruth?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . What do you want?’

  He laughed. Careless, breezy. How long it had been since I’d heard someone laugh like that. It felt like a miracle.

  ‘They haven’t told you about me, then? I’m your draper. Well, Rooker Senior is. I bring all your material.’

  ‘Oh. I wouldn’t know where to put it. Mrs Metyard and Miss Metyard are in the showroom, but I could—’

  He gestured over my shoulder. ‘Sure, in that lumber room behind you will be grand. Come on.’

  Jamming his hands into his coat pockets, he turned and walked across the yard towards the gate. Snatches of a melody floated to me on the summer breeze. He was whistling.

  Leaving the house didn’t strike me as an advisable course of action – not with the threat of Kate’s poker. But the wrench I felt as Billy Rooker slipped from sight was strong enough to combat my good sense. To lose him would be like forfeiting the only gasp of fresh air I’d breathed in months. I had to follow.

  The soil was dusty beneath my boots. I retraced the steps I’d taken with Ma two days ago, past the c
oal hole, through the battered gate. Billy stood at the side of the road next to a wagon. A sturdy piebald mare dozed between the shafts. She was tied to a hitching post.

  ‘Autumn colours,’ Billy told me. ‘Already. They don’t waste any time, your fine ladies.’

  As he opened the back doors, I darted glances down the street, hoping against hope to see Ma. There were only milkmaids and bakers. Each time I thought of her out here, alone, another part of me withered. Already the world outside Metyard’s felt bigger and noisier than I recalled.

  ‘Here.’ Billy was standing hunched over inside the wagon, pushing out a long roll wrapped in canvas. ‘These are the bolts. You take that end, I’ll grab the other.’

  The canvas scratched against my palms.

  The bolt wasn’t heavy, really; more unwieldy. I could see why Billy would struggle to navigate it into Metyard’s by himself. Gallantly, he walked backwards, allowing me to see the steps and the gate. But to tell you the truth, I couldn’t turn my face up. It felt too intimate: staring down that roll of fabric at a young man. Like I was hot and too large for my body.

  I’d never had a male friend, barely seen a boy my own age. And here, suddenly, was this dazzling person, in his early twenties, so friendly. New and alarming sensations rose up inside of me. My corset seemed too tight.

  But if I was flustered, Billy didn’t notice. He kept chattering away to me. ‘You’ll like this one. Striking colour; chestnut, like a conker. Or a bit deeper. Like . . . Miss Kate’s hair.’

  ‘Nell has cinnamon hair,’ I replied without thinking. My cheeks burned. I could have bitten my tongue off.

  But Billy seemed pleased. ‘Aye! So she does. I never thought of it like that. Cinnamon. And what about your hair? What will we call that?’

  ‘A mess,’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘You’re all right, Ruth.’

  We lumped about half a dozen bolts from the wagon and set them on the floor of the lumber room. My shoulders ached, but less than I’d expected. I already had more strength than I used to.

  Billy and I stood together, catching our breath. His cap had slipped to a jaunty angle.

  ‘Come on.’ He produced a knife from his pocket. ‘Fancy a peek?’

  With a practised motion, he squatted and cut the canvases away. Burnt orange, hunter green, russet and merlot. Then the chestnut, just like he said.

  ‘Look at that velvet! Trim it with sable fur and you’ll have yourself a spanking cape.’

  I reached out a hand to touch. It was soft as skin. I yearned to lean down and place my cheek against the pile. Would that make a difference – if I caressed material instead of stabbing it? It might. But this gentle, voluptuous feeling was hard to keep alive. It sparked out so much quicker than hate.

  ‘I suppose you need to be paid,’ I said, forcing myself away from the velvet. ‘I don’t know how it works here. Should I fetch Mrs Metyard? She might not like me going in the showroom . . .’

  ‘No. Better get back to your sewing before the old dragon catches you.’ He winked. It caused an odd movement inside my throat. ‘I’ll be grand; Miss Kate will come and find me when she’s ready.’

  Disappointed, I shuffled out of the lumber room. Billy returned the knife to his pocket and followed me. It made a nice change to be walking at the front, instead of behind Kate and the other girls. But when I turned, heading for the kitchen where no doubt Mim would still be struggling with the plates, Billy started to climb the hallowed carpeted stairs. Easy as you like, the most natural thing in the world! I paused, confounded, wondering if I should stop him. He was already gone.

  My step was less steady as I entered the kitchen. Suppose I got into trouble for letting him inside? What if he stole something? If Mim could be beaten over a cracked plate, my situation was dire. I remembered that missing finger . . .

  Mim was in the kitchen, as I’d thought, but so were the other girls. They lounged at the table while Mim washed up. We’d all be for it, if Kate found us dallying. But Nell looked relieved rather than guilty, her shoulders less hunched than usual. Even Ivy’s scowl was gone.

  ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ she asked me. ‘Mr Rooker.’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  Ivy threw back her head and exhaled. ‘Thank goodness. That’s her in a good mood for the rest of the day.’

  I stared at them. ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

  Ivy waved her hand dismissively, as if she’d done with speaking to me.

  Nell got up from the table. ‘Mr Rooker is Miss Kate’s fiancé. Didn’t he tell you that?’

  Rosalind Oldacre’s boots: that was all I could liken it to, the swift drop in my chest. Of course Kate, with her tilted nose and tiny waist, had everything. That’s why he’d compared the velvet to her hair.

  Whereas I was just a silly, mooning girl of thirteen.

  ‘He spoils her something rotten,’ Daisy said. ‘Lucky bitch. I wish someone would mix me drinks and buy me rings. Haven’t you seen it, the sapphire on her finger? Must have cost him a year’s wages. You could take someone’s eye out with that.’

  Mim shivered, as if she knew only too well.

  Sapphire was the stone for Kate. Another deep, fathomless blue. And Billy’s eyes would rival the stone with their brighter, lighter hues.

  ‘Well,’ said Nell, moving towards the cupboard. ‘If Mr Rooker is here, I’d better fetch the cocoa flakes.’

  * * *

  I never tasted cocoa. All I drank was the smell: sweet, seductive and a tiny bit peppery, wafting its way up from the rooms below. It was like a dream, like a sumptuous gown. You could feel the texture of it.

  The girls said Billy Rooker mixed the best cup of cocoa in the land, even finer than the parlours in London. But how anyone knew that, I’m not sure, because he only ever made cocoa for Miss Kate.

  When she returned to us that day, there was a brown smudge above her top lip. It looked erotic, almost obscene, as she went about smiling, humming to herself, unaware. Billy hadn’t noticed the mark, he hadn’t kissed it away. It seemed to me that was the sort of thing a fiancé should do.

  There were no arguments, no beatings that afternoon. But I was mistaken if I thought the holiday spirit of Billy’s visit would last.

  The next week, as I stumbled into the attic, barely awake, it struck me that something was off. A taint in the air. That was unusual. Kate kept the workroom in pristine condition to protect the material; there was no fireplace to produce smuts, and spreading dust was counted as bad as speaking a curse. Still, there was something. An odour.

  Kate herself was downstairs, arranging the new bolts in the showroom window; otherwise, she might have noticed it. But I was too tired to give it more than a cursory thought.

  I watched Nell open the drawers – she’d been entrusted with the key that morning – and picked out my needle and my spools. There were about three pieces of half-completed slop that I had to finish, within the hour, before we all started on bodices for the season’s ball gowns.

  I’d left my work pinned and tucked in a wicker basket the night before, which I put in an empty cupboard at the back of the room. No one else left work unfinished overnight, but I’d presumed this was due to impatient customers and Miss Kate’s scolds.

  I was wrong.

  The basket felt heavier than I recalled. Weighted. I placed it on the work table, aware of the twins watching me. That wasn’t odd in itself – I think my plain face was a form of amusement to them. So I carried on, dwelling more upon the strange odour than on Ivy and Daisy, and submerged my hands beneath folds of cotton, ready to lift my work from the basket.

  ‘Ugh!’ I recoiled, holding my fingers up. Slime. Faintly yellow, salty and sour. ‘What . . .’

  A quick gasp of breath. Daisy, smothering a laugh.

  ‘What have you done?’ Frantic, I tipped the basket over and rummaged through my half-se
wn cotton petticoats. All of them were stained with the same phlegm-like substance. And there, sandwiched in the middle, two sets of bones. Fish bones from yesterday’s dinner.

  They hadn’t been picked clean. Grey ribbons of skin snagged on the prongs; one of the creatures still had scales and eyes in its head. It gaped at me.

  Anger filled me to the brim. I would have flown at her. Skidded across the table, torn the shears from their rope. But at that moment, Kate’s foot creaked on the floorboards.

  ‘What’s this?’ She looked just as she had that night with the poker: her features petrified.

  I was a coward. I admit it. All the fire within me died under the cold intensity of her glare. ‘I . . .’

  No laughter now. Everyone focused on Kate’s quick eyes as they darted from the ruined petticoats to me and back again.

  Surely she’d realise I hadn’t done it. Why would I do it? Mim and Nell knew the truth; they would say the words that were congested in my throat.

  Wouldn’t they?

  The silence began to ache.

  When at last Kate spoke, her voice rang out like a gunshot. ‘Coal hole.’

  I gawked at her.

  ‘Coal hole. Quickly.’

  Before I could gather my wits, she’d crossed the room and twisted my arm behind my back. She pushed me, in front of her this time, from the room and down the stairs.

  ‘Three more petticoats to pay off. You’ll never leave here, Ruth.’

  ‘I didn’t—’ She trod on the hem of my gown, jolting me back.

  I was stronger than her, heavier too. If she didn’t have my arm at such an angle, I might have broken free. But what then? Mrs Metyard’s leniency would end the minute I assaulted her daughter. To hit out would be to sign Ma’s warrant for debtors’ prison.

  We reached the ground floor. Coal hole. What had Kate meant by that? For a delirious moment, I thought she was going to take me outside and cram me through the narrow chute in the garden. But she swung me round and pointed me towards the kitchen.

  There was a hatch in the floor. I’d failed to notice it, devouring my precious meals at the table while Mim bustled back and forth. Now I saw its terrible wooden slats and the darkness gaping between. I thought I might prefer the chute, after all.