A Broken Vessel (8 page)

The flaxen-haired girl had not sat down. Mr. Harcourt looked at her, brows lifted. “Have you something else to say, Florence?”

“W-well, sir, it’s only that—” Florence swallowed hard. “I don’t think Mary meant to sleep so late, sir. I was thinking, happen it might be her medicine as made her sleep so sound. I seen the bottle on the table by her bed, and—”

“What bottle?” said Mrs. Fiske impatiently. “She doesn’t take her medicine from a bottle. I give it to her in a glass.”

“But I seen a bottle—”

“You may sit down now, Florence,” said Mr. Harcourt.

“Yes, sir.”

“While we wait for Mary,” he said, “this seems an opportune time to read the lesson of the wise and foolish bridesmaids.” He opened his Bible.

Suddenly Margaret came running down the stairs and into the room. She stopped still in the doorway, hands clasped. Every head turned toward her.

“Oh, Mr. Harcourt, Mrs. Fiske, it’s a grievous thing I’ve seen! Sure, we knew Mary had an unrepentant heart, but I never thought she’d stoop to such wickedness!”

“What do you mean?” demanded Harcourt. “Has she left us?”

“Aye, sir!” wailed Margaret. “And I shudder to think of her where she is now!”

“What are you saying?” cried Mrs. Fiske. “Where is she?”

“Where no hope nor help can ever reach her! She’s dead, ma’am—and by her own hand!”

CHAPTER
6

T
he inmates broke into gasps, exclamations, shrieks. “Quiet, all of you!” Harcourt commanded, his voice ringing clearly through the din. Margaret strode in among them, enforcing silence by shaking their shoulders and boxing their ears.

Mrs. Fiske stood clenching and unclenching her fists. Her face was contorted with passion, but Sally—her eyes glued in fascination to the gap in the door—could not tell what passion it was. “Are you sure of this?” she pressed Margaret. “If you’ve caused all this row to no purpose—”

“It’s true, ma’am, I swear it! Bad luck to me if I lie! I saw her as clear as I see you now—stretched out on her bed, cold as ice! And there was a bottle of laudanum, almost empty, on the table by her bed, and a bit of laudanum left in the glass she takes her medicine in. Sure as Shrove-tide, she’s used the laudanum to put an end to her miserable life—”

“Don’t blaspheme, Margaret,” said Harcourt curtly. “Come, we must go to her at once. Mrs. Fiske, will you be so good as to come with me? And Margaret, I’ll need you as well. The rest of you are to have breakfast as usual. Bess, you may serve the porridge and bread, and Nancy, lead the others in saying grace.”

He went out, Mrs. Fiske and Margaret with him. Sally hid behind the door till she heard them go up the stairs, then crept quickly after them. She reached the top of the stairs just in time to see them disappear through the door that connected this house with the one adjacent. To her disappointment, she heard a key scrape in the lock. She tried the door, but, as she expected, it would not budge.

What should she do now? Mrs. Fiske seemed to have forgotten all about her. She did not want to leave yet—she still had not found the writer of the letter, and besides, she was curious about this girl Mary. Perhaps she should go downstairs and talk to the inmates while they were left free of supervision.

The key turned in the lock again. Sally fled a little way down the stairs and stood pressed against the wall. The light was dim enough here for her to look up into the front hallway without much chance of being seen herself.

Mrs. Fiske came through the connecting door, locked it behind her, and hastened upstairs. Sally started to follow her, then scurried back into cover. For Mrs. Fiske came quickly down again, wrapped in a shawl and tying a drab bonnet under her chin. She went out by the street door.

Now, where are you off to, you old cat? Sally mused. To fetch a doctor, p’raps, or a constable—

Suddenly she was struck from behind. She stumbled on the stairs and scrambled around to face her enemy.

It was only the flaxen-haired girl, Florence, looking as dazed as herself. “Who are you?”

“Me name’s Sally. I come here to be reformed, only it seems like it ain’t a good day for it.”

“No, it ain’t.” Florence giggled nervously. “I’m sorry I run right into you like that. I’m in such a pucker, I didn’t see you. We’re all at sixes and sevens—Red Jane’s spilled her porridge down the front of my apron. Just look!”

“I heard a gal laid hands on herself last night.”

“Hush!” Florence put a finger to her lips and looked about warily. “Mr. Harcourt’ll cut up rough if he hears us talking about it.”

“He won’t hear nothing—he’s too far off.” All the same, Sally sank her voice. “This gal Mary—who was she?”

“Nobody knowed, really. She wasn’t like the rest of us. She was a lady.”

“A lady?” Sally pricked up her ears.

“Certain sure. You could tell by the way she talked—
when
she talked, which wasn’t often. Mr. Harcourt was that cross with her, on account of she’d never say nothing about herself, or where she come from, or who her people was. He wanted to know all about her, you see, because anybody could tell she’d been brung up respectable, and he thought if he could send her home, reformed and right as a trivet, her people’d be ever so grateful. Leastways that’s what Peg says, and Peg always knows his mind.”

It must’ve been this gal Mary as wrote the letter! Sally thought. A lady, and one as wouldn’t talk about herself.

“It’s mortal sad, ain’t it?” said Florence, “her drinking down that poison in the dead of night, all alone. If she hadn’t been in the Black Hole, she couldn’t have done it. Somebody would have stopped her.”

“What’s the Black Hole?”

“It’s a little room—hardly more nor a closet, really. We call it the Black Hole on account of it has no windows or hearth, so it’s always dark and cold. It’s for punishing an inmate as is
in-tracktable
. Mr. Harcourt put poor Mary in it directly she come, because she wouldn’t confess her sins or tell where she come from, or even give her true name. Just called herself Mary—and when she was asked her surname, she’d say ‘Magdalene.’ She was plucky, in her way, was Mary. So Mr. Harcourt was in a bad skin with her from the first. He made her sleep all alone in the Black Hole—not like the rest of us, we sleeps four or five to a room—and in the daytime she had to take her meals at a little table by herself, and wear a sign round her neck that said ‘Unrepentant.’ I don’t know why he let her stay at all—he’s put many a gal over the door for much less. I s’pose it’s as Peg says: he thought her people might be swells, and do something for him.” She cocked her head thoughtfully. “ ’Cept, that’s not all there was to it. He wanted to break her.”

“Bugger his eyes!” said Sally. “That ain’t no way to treat a dog, let alone a poor gal as is gently bred, and lost her character!”

Florence nodded sadly. “She felt it, did Mary. Very low, she was. Though it’s queer—”

“What?” Sally prompted.

“She seemed better the last few days—not so green about the gills as she was before. And she’d smile to herself sometimes, like she was hugging a secret to her heart. Mr. Harcourt didn’t like that above half, I can tell you! But p’raps it was just her medicine put her a bit more in form. She was taking a cordial— ‘Summerson’s Strengthening Elixir,’ it’s called. You wouldn’t think she’d want to make away with herself, just when she was on her pins again, now would you?”

The door that connected the two houses suddenly opened, and Harcourt swept in, Margaret hurrying after him. “I’ll be in my office,” he said, without so much as breaking his stride or looking back to see if she was listening. “Tell Mrs. Fiske when she returns that I can’t see anyone—unless one of the trustees should come early. And remember, on no account is anyone to speak to any journalist, on
any
subject, until I give leave.”

“Yes, Mr. Harcourt,” the Irish girl said soulfully.

Harcourt suddenly stopped and peered down the basement stairs. He must have especially keen eyes, or perhaps the light was growing brighter. “What are you doing there, Florence?”

“Please you, sir, I come up to change my apron. It has porridge spilled on it.”

“Change it at once, and go back to breakfast. Who is that with you?”

Sally had no choice but to come upstairs. Harcourt raked her with his pale blue eyes. It gave her the shivers. Men often looked at her as if they could see through her clothes, but Mr. Harcourt’s gaze seemed to pierce her very skin.

“Who are you?” he said. “What do you want?”

For once Sally’s tongue was tied. Florence stepped into the breach. “She’s come to be an inmate, sir.”

“You had no business speaking with her. You know you’re forbidden to talk to strangers.”

“Yes, sir. But there wasn’t nobody to look after her, and I—I—”

“Never mind. I’ll overlook it this once, seeing that things are somewhat—irregular—today.”

Irregular? thought Sally. Is that what you calls it when a poor gal hops the twig right under your own roof? But she held her tongue, thinking she might get Florence into trouble by revealing she had talked to her about Mary’s death. One thing was certain: she was not going to breathe a word about Mary’s letter to these people. Mr. Harcourt was a cold fish; she did not trust him. And the inmates seemed completely under his sway.

Harcourt turned to Margaret. “As Mrs. Fiske is absent, I’m relying on you to keep order among the inmates. Have them go on with their work as usual. The trustees will be here in a few hours, and I wish them to see that our normal routines are unshaken. Not that we’re not greatly saddened and sobered by this event, of course.”

“It breaks me heart, Mr. Harcourt!” Margaret pressed her hands to her breast. “Sure, if she’d only listened to you, and repented of her evil ways—! It’s a lesson to us all, a bitter lesson! The wages of sin is death!”

“I’m glad to see you’ve profited by her example. I hope you will encourage the other inmates to do likewise.”

“There’s never a day goes by when I don’t strive to shine on me fellow sinners a bit of the light that’s fallen upon me.”

“I perceive that, Margaret. Be assured, your efforts do not go unappreciated.” He started up the stairs, waving his hand dismissively at Sally. “Send this young woman away.”

“Yes, Mr. Harcourt.”

The Irish girl stood looking after him till he was out of sight. Then she turned to Sally, with a smile that transformed her face. Her long eyes turned up at the corners, her chin and cheekbones sharpened, till she looked just like a fox. “Well, you heard what Himself said. You’ll have to go. Come back another day, if you can stomach this place after seeing him—the great bloody ass!”

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” marvelled Sally. “You’re a reg’lar out-and-outer, you are.”

Margaret tossed her head complacently. “I know a trick or two. Faith, isn’t it Wideawake Peg they call me? I should live to see the day when I couldn’t bamboozle a stiff romped pulpit-thumper like Himself! And lucky for you I do, Florrie Ames,” she added, rounding on Florence. “Where would you and the other girls be if I didn’t play up to Himself, and piss down his back, and make meself out to be the greatest penitent since St. Mary Magdalene kissed the cross?”

“It’s true,” Florrie confirmed. “Peg’s got Mr. Harcourt’s ear more nor any of us, and she can go ’most anywhere she likes here, even his office. If we wants something—extra food or candles, or anything at all—it’s Peg can get it for us.”

“You makes ’em fork out for it, I expect,” said Sally to Peg.

“And why not?” Peg was unruffled. “Isn’t it meself that takes all the risks? I’m not a public charity, now, am I? If I do a favour for one of me friends, I expect a favour back. Off with you, now. Himself won’t like it if he finds you still here.”

Sally went. She had a good deal to tell Mr. Kestrel and Dipper. And yet, it was simple enough when you came right down to it. She had found the writer of the letter—and found her too late.

“And then Peg shooed me out, and I come back here,” Sally finished. “And that’s all about it.” She threw herself down on the sofa. “Now, you might give me some’ut to wet me whistle, seeing as how I’ve talked so long.”

“Give her a drink,” said Julian, without looking around from the window where he stood.

“Yes, sir.” Dipper poured her some ale.