The Corset, page 4
Ma perched on the edge of the comfortable chair, hands clasped. Lines of worry pleated her forehead. ‘You have … enjoyed working on the gloves?’ she asked tentatively.
I gathered them closer to me. ‘Yes.’
‘So you would not object to helping me with more embroidery?’
Could there be another project as beautiful? I closed my eyes, dreamt of heavy felted wool, shimmering taffeta, a rainbow spread of cotton. A girl could lose herself in colours like that. ‘No.’
‘That’s good. Because I thought perhaps you might learn the work alongside me. As a kind of apprentice. Only there would be some … changes.’ Her voice caught, like a knotted thread. ‘You would have to stop attending school, for instance.’
My eyes flew open. The room looked very cold, very black after my visions of sumptuous fabric. ‘Why?’
‘To focus on the task, to …’ she began, but even Ma couldn’t brazen this through. Exhaling, she raised a hand to her forehead. ‘If I am honest, it is because we need you to earn a wage. Full time. We cannot afford to keep paying out for school. I’m so sorry, Ruth. I wanted you to have opportunities, to be able to pick your path in life. But if you sit and sew with me during the days, I can teach you what I learnt when I was your age. I did French, you know, and some history. I will not let you grow up ignorant.’
I ought to be relieved to leave school and the teasing girls behind. I was. But it was all so sudden. ‘Why did you send me to school in the first place, if you knew you couldn’t pay for it?’
‘I thought we could, but … ’
‘Something has changed.’
Dark as it was, she refused to meet my gaze. ‘Yes. It’s a thing I never expected to happen, not after so long.’
‘What?’ I demanded.
‘It’s a baby, Ruth. I’m going to have another baby.’
A baby. Wasn’t that just my luck? A snivelling, shrieking baby to torment my leisure hours. Not that I had those, over the next few months. Every waking minute was spent sewing items of tiny clothing. I never thought I would miss school, but I did. Far from being a release, my needlework was now a horror. I resented that baby to its backbone before it was even born.
Sewing for the baby wasn’t like the Metyard work; there was no creativity to it. Whatever I made, no matter how fine, I knew it would be drooled and urinated on.
I learnt, during those long and weary hours, that I could slip a needle under the skin on the pad of my thumb without making it bleed. It was like a roasting jack with my thumb as the pig. You couldn’t see where I ended and the needle began. Ma said it was a disgusting trick and it made her go dizzy. But I kept doing it.
My thirteenth birthday came and went with the multicoloured rain of Bonfire Night. Pa bought me a firework and set it off because I loved the smell of their smoke. It was the only bright patch on my horizon. Afterwards, the weather cycled through various shades of gloom. I sat in the window like Ma, my back stiff, watching the same leaves blown up and down the street like old rags.
Sometimes, below the howl of the wind, I thought I heard another noise. A laboured creak. It woke me at night, nagged at me throughout the day. Neither Ma nor Pa mentioned it. But when I closed my eyes and listened close, I knew I recognised the sound. It was the groan my corset had made, when Rosalind Oldacre’s feet snapped its bones.
Ma might take me out of school and distract me with chores, but I hadn’t forgotten.
I would never forget.
One day, I was working on a blanket for the baby, alone downstairs, when Ma lurched into the house with a box and a parcel wrapped in brown paper. I thought expectant mothers were supposed to bloom but she was puffy and bloated, more of a frog than a flower.
‘Phew! The material seems to get heavier each time.’ She let me take the box and put it by the window while she watched, stretching out her back. Beads of rain stood on her cape. ‘Thank you, Ruth.’
I bent and opened up the lid. A coarse and itchy perfume rose to meet me. Piles of hard-wearing cambric and buckram for lining garments – no wonder the box was heavy.
Ma discarded her bonnet and half-fell into the comfortable chair, her head lolling against the antimacassar.
What was this wretched baby: a leech, a parasite? Sewing long hours had drained Ma’s colour, but this – she looked positively cadaverous. I knelt down beside her and unlaced her boots.
‘Did the butcher’s boy come while I was out?’ she asked.
‘No. He still hasn’t been. That’s a fortnight now.’
I was looking at her feet, but I felt her expression in the slow release of her sigh. ‘Oh. Oh dear. We must be behind on our bill.’
‘Then we should pay it. Didn’t you get any extra money for the gloves I embroidered?’
‘Oh, Ruth,’ she said sadly. ‘I should have done. It was excellent work. The bride was delighted. But you don’t know Mrs Metyard.’
It was lucky I had to turn away to put Ma’s boots aside. She didn’t see the sudden spasm in my face, the anger I could not conceal. My gloves. Still mine, but adorning someone else.
‘Actually, I heard some rather strange news today about that bride. Miss Kate – that’s Mrs Metyard’s daughter – happened to be friendly with one of the Lindsay servants, so I thought I would ask if she knew how the wedding went off.’ Ma tilted her head. ‘Well, what do you think? The bride didn’t stop crying, the whole day of her marriage!’
‘I suppose she was so mighty happy,’ I growled.
‘No, that’s just it! She’d seemed very happy before, choosing her dress material and having it fitted. But on the wedding morning she looked in the glass and burst into tears. Poor thing, she kept sobbing and saying how ugly she was, how she ruined the nice clothes! Can you imagine? She wept fit to break her heart all through the service. Heaven only knows what her husband thought!’
There was a dark glee in picturing it: a rich lady, finely dressed, feeling the same dismay that consumed me while I sat embroidering her gloves. A throb of connection through the stitches. ‘How ungrateful. Fancy whining when there are real spinsters and ugly old maids. She has no right to feel that way.’
Ma’s cheeks sagged. She looked unlike herself – vulnerable, raw. ‘Everyone is entitled to a feeling, Ruth, even if they are not at liberty to act upon it. Perhaps she could not esteem the man she was marrying. Perhaps she had no choice in the matter.’
I turned away and picked up my blanket again. It was essentially finished but I made a fuss of tying up the threads, knotting them like a garrotte and biting them short. I was no simpleton; I’d realised long before now that Ma only married my father to escape the match her family had arranged. But was it really the right choice? A rich wife had diamonds and satin to keep her warm when her husband’s affection cooled. Ma had nothing but drudgery. She deserved much more. It made me furious.
‘Careful, Ruth. Why aren’t you using your scissors?’
‘I’ve nearly finished anyway. I suppose you’ll want caps next.’
‘Well, and won’t you like that? You were complaining that the work was too plain. At least you can add some pretty detail to a cap.’
Could I? Lace was too costly. All the trims my imagination conjured up were far beyond my reach. I could do some white-work, I supposed, but it didn’t appease my ambition.
‘Ma,’ I said suddenly, ‘what will we do when the baby comes?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What will we do? Will we send for a physician?’
‘Oh.’ She closed her eyelids and leant back in the chair. ‘No. We could never afford that. Mrs Simmons and Mrs Winter said they will come and help.’
Mrs Simmons and Mrs Winter from church were kind women – nice enough to share a pew with. But could they deliver a child? No one had told me about the birth process. I knew there was blood involved. Something about hot water. Our church friends seemed too dignified to take part in an operation like that.
I unpicked the scrap of white thread hooked around the eye of my needle and let it float to the floor. Then I slotted the needle carefully back in my cloth book.
‘Don’t you think Pa might stretch to it? If we ask him? He sold that picture of the dog last week.’
‘No, no, don’t be silly.’ She still had her eyes closed. That was deliberate. Lines of tension around her temples showed she was concealing something behind the lids. ‘A second child is always easier.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘No!’
I stared at her, wishing my gaze could pierce through her eyelids. ‘Truly?’
‘I managed with you. I have no concerns at all.’
The false brightness of her voice made me sick to my stomach. Mumbling an excuse, I stood and went upstairs.
Ma’s housekeeping chatelaine lay splayed on her bed. Rust had devoured all but a few of the keys. Softly, I pushed them round the ring until I came to the one I sought: Pa’s studio.
I liked to be in the studio alone because I wasn’t meant to be, because I wanted to see the pictures Pa called his true self. And because of the gun.
I unlocked the drawer and eased it open, slowly revealing the barrel, with relish. Bullets, powder and ramrods lay behind. I wasn’t interested in them. I picked up the pistol itself, enjoying its cool weight in my hands. Then I propped it on my lap and studied the little hammers, the sidelocks, the silver-mounted leaves on its tortoiseshell handle. Beautiful. Not a cheap banger. A good piece; something Ma’s own father might have possessed in the old days.
I thought Pa should sell it to help Ma with her baby. Yet when I raised the sight to my face, I understood why he didn’t. There was solace in the pistol. Solid, heavy. That odour it gave off, metallic and corrupt.
I liked to know it was there, waiting for me. I liked to close the drawer and hear the bullets roll.
5
Dorothea
Today my carriage passed through the gates just as a Black Maria trundled to a halt in front of the prison. I reached to put down the window and tell Graymarsh to slow his pace, but he anticipated me. Our horses broke their trot and settled into a walk.
Police transportation is seldom pretty. Beneath the ecstatic blue of the morning sky, the Black Maria and its dark pair of horses looked positively funereal. I noted gouges on the body of the coach and great scratches that might have been made with fingernails. I attempted to imagine a violence as rabid as that: a force that cannot be contained.
Staff had gathered on the steps of the prison. Not merely the matrons but burly men with very little neck. This one was a fighter.
Policemen unbolted the doors. David would not be out on such an errand, yet still I searched for his whiskers amongst the blue-coated men as they pulled a faceless, shapeless mass from the vehicle. It stumbled, unsteady on its legs. Only the ripped skirt dragging on the gravel suggested it was female.
Little by little, she unfolded. A wild tangle of hair, grey with dirt, and a sharp face. I did not like the eyes.
I knew she would lunge and she did, just as the prison bell tolled. It was futile. Masses of policemen and hordes of staff were prepared to restrain her flailing limbs. She could not seriously have expected to escape. Perhaps she just wanted to claw and inflict injury while she still could? Her shrieks and curses joined with the bell in a terrible evensong.
‘I think I shall leave off visiting that prisoner,’ I told Tilda. ‘At least for the present.’
By contrast, Ruth Butterham’s cell seemed a haven of peace when Matron shuffled me inside. Jaundiced light fell through the circular window of yellow glass and wire, touching the top of Ruth’s unkempt head. I narrowed my eyes, hoping to discern the lineaments of the skull, but her hair was impenetrable.
The prisoner tilted her chin up as I entered, and I saw with relief that she was not picking that awful oakum. A Bible lay spread on her lap. Her hands, though stained, were motionless.
‘Good morning, Ruth. How pleased I am to see you so employed.’
‘Oh, it’s you, miss.’ She did not speak with much enthusiasm.
‘Yes. I told you I would come.’
Matron clanged the door shut. I felt it with my body. She did not say anything this time about keeping a watch on us. I pushed down my sense of foreboding and took a seat.
Ruth’s dark eyes studied me. Up and down, pausing at my cuffs, my hem and my waist. Her mother had been a seamstress, of course – she would be noting every detail of my dress.
‘Tell me what you have read today, Ruth.’
Ruth sighed and closed the Bible softly. ‘People are always asking me that. They think, because I did bad things, that I never read the Bible or went to church. But I always did.’
‘Well, perhaps you have never really understood the Gospel? It may not have been explained to you properly.’
Her brow furrowed. It made her eyes look even farther apart. ‘Maybe it hasn’t. But I know enough. I think people know when a thing is wrong, but they do it anyway. They do it because they want to.’
I shifted on my chair. ‘But if that were true, Ruth, if we all acted on our baser instincts, we should all be in prison.’
‘Why, miss!’ A smile crept up her cheek. ‘You don’t mean to say that you have bad thoughts, too?’
Sauce and impudence! A blush hit my face like scalding water. I checked over my shoulder to see if Matron was hovering at the hatch. It was shut. ‘No one is perfect, Ruth. For myself, I belong to the Roman Catholic Church. If I am ashamed of any thought, I confess it to the priest and ask him to absolve me.’
‘I gave my confession to the bluebottles, but I don’t think they’ll let me off, do you?’
‘But that is not the same. Surely you see? You only signed a paper saying you had killed your mistress. You did not explain what was in your heart at the time.’ She turned her head away; a typical, childish gesture. ‘And then when you spoke to me the other day, you mentioned others. People you had killed by accident. What about them? Were you in earnest, or was that an invention?’
She did not answer. Closing the Bible, she held it in one hand, drumming her fingertips upon the cover. Raw. Black-tipped. What had those fingers done?
‘You could tell me.’ My voice came out strained. ‘You have started to talk about your life at home with your family. Why not confide in me further? You might find it a purgative, Ruth.’
‘Ah! So you’re a gossip, are you? That makes sense.’
‘I am not a gossip!’ I flared. Too loud. Matron’s steps echoed in the corridor, coming our way.
Ruth closed her eyes. Her lips compressed. ‘You want a story. Something you can tell your friends over tea. Well, I’ve had enough of people talking behind my back.’
‘People will talk, whatever happens. There will be newspaper accounts … Maybe even ballads. Only you can reveal the truth.’
She smiled. Not a pleasant smile. It chilled me. ‘Happen I will tell you, miss. But don’t pretend it’s for me. It’s about you.’
Before I could respond, the door screeched open. Matron banged in, her keys tinkling like rain. ‘Everything all right, Miss Truelove?’
I stood. To my mortification, one of my legs trembled beneath my skirts. I did not like to appear discomposed before Matron.
‘Yes, thank you, Matron. Everything is in order. I was just moving on to visit Jenny Hill.’ I looked at Ruth. Usually I would extend a hand for her to shake, but I blanched at the idea of those fingers upon my gloves. Instead, I nodded. ‘I will come again next week, Ruth. We can talk at greater length.’
She stuck out her chin. ‘You won’t like it, miss.’
I fear that perhaps she is right.
6
Ruth
Pins and needles ran up my legs. I scooted round on my knees, trying to draw the chalk line straight on the bolt of calico.
‘You need to start the pattern closer to the edge,’ Ma called from the window. ‘Otherwise you’ll waste material.’
I nodded, but I didn’t obey her.
‘We have been using rather a lot of material, recently.’
‘I’m sorry, Ma. This is new to me.’
Ma rubbed the bridge of her nose, then returned to the stocking she was seaming. ‘I understand that, dear. I would bend to do it myself, if I could, but …’
‘I know. The baby’s too big.’
Always the baby. At least this time, it was doing me a favour.
You might think it was a shabby trick, making waste on purpose. But if Mrs Metyard and her customers could dress in silk and lace, I reckoned I was entitled to a scrap of calico from her stores. Calico was the perfect lining.
I finished my marks and dusted off my hands. ‘There.’
‘Good. Could you cut it out?’
Reaching for the fabric scissors, my hand brushed something smooth. I turned my head.
It was a scrap of peach sateen, entwined seductively around the scissors. My fingertips began to tingle.
Such a soft, sweet colour. Warming. A rose opening on a spring day. I wanted to touch it, wanted to be it. Cautiously, I picked up the scissors and the sateen together, holding them close to my apron.
‘The light is poor today,’ Ma sighed. ‘Your father will be having a hard time of it in the studio. It is so important for him to render the shadows correctly.’
Carefully, carefully, I slipped the material into my apron. I felt a bit brighter, a little more beautiful, just having it about my person.
‘Can you see to cut, Ruth?’
Only my scissors answered with their sharp snip.
‘A bit wider than that, darling, for the seams.’
‘Yes, Ma.’
Seams be damned. What I had in mind was more important.
Cutting out panels was long and laborious work, especially in the gloom. The scissors grew heavy; their metal handles bit into the skin around my fingers. I fought to see the chalk lines through tired eyes. My pupils felt drier than parchment, sprinkled with sand.
