A Taste for Nightshade (26 page)

Beginning to recover from the shock of the fire, I observed my husband, marvelling at him, seeing him anew. Had I never noticed the lines of cruelty around his petulant mouth? I seethed inwardly with the knowledge of what he had done to Peg, and how he was all the time scheming to supplant me. As for the arsonists, I felt grudging admiration for their pluck. Like me, they had performed a simple mathematical sum; that if Michael's mill made him rich, it could only be at their expense.

As Michael's bottle emptied he grew even more boisterous, and described a comic picture by Mr Gillray. ‘I suppose you have not seen it, though it is all the fashion. It depicts these trouserless French dogs gathered about a table to dine – and what do you suppose they eat?' He picked a splinter from his teeth. ‘Why, the limbs, heads, and eyes of the French nobility. Their children guzzle a bucket of entrails, while a hag roasts a baby over a fire. That will be Britain's future, if we let these mobs rule.'

If I had not already felt sick at the sight of severed bones, I did now.

‘I am unwell,' I said, rising.

Up in my chamber I locked the door and lay on my bed, too agitated to sleep. Every instinct in my body urged me to get away from Michael, but when I cast about for somewhere to go, no sanctuary suggested itself. Since my father had died, even my dreary room at Greaves was lost to me. There could be no refuge with Anne, either, since she had sailed for Botany Bay. As for John Francis, even if I knew where he was, we could not renew our friendship now he was marrying. I comprehended I was entirely alone, and wondered how this had come to pass? No one had ever called on me here at Delafosse; I had not even the slightest acquaintance here in Earlby. Peg was my only friend and support.

At some time in the night I slipped my hand beneath my pillow, in search of a handkerchief to wipe my eyes. Instead, my fingers fixed on something else, a strand of hair, very fine but as strong as metal thread. I started to wind it around my hand in the darkness, though it cut like wire into my skin. On and on it wound, as never-ending as that thread of destiny spun for each human soul by the Fates. I held my breath, convinced that the putrid stuff came from no living being, but from the infamous trade in corpse's hair.

Then – and at this my senses almost failed – it began to move. It began palpably to grow, with an unstoppable sensation of aliveness. The stuff was on my face, a smothering cushion of soft foulness. I grew burning hot, as if the bed cover too, was of woven hair, the pillow on which my head lay, too. I clawed and fought back. Still it wriggled gently, probing my skin like thistledown tentacles, entering my nose, my eyes, my mouth …

Next morning, I waited until I saw Peg leave for the village, and then took the pony cart and caught her up. After my nightmare, I had slept little and was light-headed with anxiety. Helping her up beside me, I asked, ‘What news?'

She shook her head. ‘He said he would miss supper tonight.'

‘I know; he is going to a meeting of mill owners. But has he given you no instructions?'

She shook her head.

‘I have been thinking, Peg. We can stop him if we go to the authorities together. Would you speak out against him?'

She pulled back in alarm at my words. ‘Please, Mrs Croxon. Don't, I beg you. You might as well buy the rope and string me up yourself.'

‘Well, is there any written evidence? A letter or document in which he writes of these matters? I could go to the magistrate alone, and you need not be involved. I could lend you money, so you could get safely away and—'

‘Mrs Croxon, begging your pardon, I wish I had never told you now. I have had longer than you to think on the matter. If you knew Newgate as I do – the end of all hope, the beatings, the swill of filth on the floor.' I looked into her bleak face, not doubting she had survived terrors beyond my own endurance. ‘It's not like I murdered anyone or committed a mortal sin, is it mistress?' She turned her head away with revulsion. ‘Them murderesses got it even worse than me, mind. Did you know, any ruffian can tip the jailer for a private visit to any female he fancies violating? On his own or with his chums. They hate the murderesses worst of all – since they have generally killed menfolk.'

I shook my head; I had never guessed men could be so wicked. For the first time in years I remember my father's
Carceri
, the chains and racks and instruments of torture. He had called them the prisons of the mind, but the worse truth was this: men built these places; they did exist.

‘If you peach on me, Mrs Croxon, you'd as good as murder me, and that's the end of it. Don't send me back there. I'd as soon stab me own heart and be done with it.'

I gripped her arm tightly. ‘There will be no need to do that. Stay calm, and I will help you. I need to think matters over further before I do anything. I need to know first what I can salvage. It is hard, Peg. Only a few days ago he was so unconstrained with me.'

‘Mrs Croxon!' It was the first time Peg had ever raised her voice to me. ‘Might I remind you, it is only lately he even came to your bed. Consider this: has he extracted anything from you in return?'

I was too ashamed to reply.

‘How much?' she asked in a tone of indignation.

I shook my head. It was none of her business. Yet I calculated that over time I had given him all of my £3,000. That was quite a fee.

‘Unconstrained, is he? Well, I suppose you have not felt his fist yet,' Peg interrupted my appalled calculations. She touched her brow where a few months earlier she had borne a purple bruise.

‘You said you fell in the dark. Did he strike you?'

‘Aye. When I tried to stand up for you, mistress. I didn't like to say. When I think on it now I should like to see him dead. He deserves it for what he's done.'

The pony knew the way and trotted on as we sat in silence. Not taking my eye from the road, I asked, ‘Has he ever touched you?'

‘Lord, no. You know yourself he don't even like me. I disgust him, being so rough-mannered.'

Just then we came to the boundary with Riverslea, and I halted the pony at the fields overlooking my neighbour's property. There it stood, Miss Claybourn's ramshackle abode. It was smaller than Delafosse, built around an ancient keep tower, a jumble of tottering half-timber, ill-matched to a later facade of brick.

‘I suppose she has no money.' I studied the mish-mash of old and new. A few windows were boarded up, and green moss grew over the sunken rooftops.

‘No. Not a mite. But she does have a taste for the high life. Her maid Sue tells me she owes a vast deal of money.'

I thought of Michael's box of unpaid bills. They would make a well-matched pair. I knew in my bones that Peg was right when she said Michael wanted only my money. At some subterranean level, I had known it from the first and let myself be played upon. But what truly enraged me was that he wanted to share it with this spendthrift jade. By God, I vowed, I would not sign another paper for him; not if I were to be scourged through the streets behind a handcart.

As we reached the outskirts of the village, I told Peg to further befriend Miss Claybourn's maid. ‘Take what time you need from your duties. Find out what you can.'

‘And you, mistress?'

‘I will make my own inquiries,' I said. I would not be drawn further.

‘Only be careful, mistress.' She clambered down from the trap. ‘He has not a thought for any but himself.'

I did not elaborate on my plans to Peg because I had no plans. Calling at the post office, I found a letter waiting from Peter. He was his usual cordial self, as he might well be, having removed to London and all the pleasures of that city. At the end, he wrote:

Peter's kindness stung me to tears. Remembering our carefree hours in York I was certainly tempted. I will sleep on it, I thought, having no appetite at present to tell Michael I might desert him for his loathed brother.

But once I had left the postal office, there were almost no public places where a lady might linger in Earlby. I scarcely wanted to meet my own housekeeper in the grocer's or butcher's shops, and the villagers were of that country type that will stand stock-still and stare very boldly at anyone whose family has not lived there since Domesday. ‘Hearken at her, Mr Michael's wife,' I heard a flat voice remark. A group of raw-faced women in shawls huddled at the Market Cross, openly discussing me as I strode past.

I took a circuit around the George, and lingered at the signboard that advertised the times and prices of the mail coaches. Bristol, Leeds, Derby, Edinburgh – and there was London. The cities' golden names danced before my eyes, like the words from a spell that might still whisk me away. Only a few weeks earlier I had daydreamed of escaping on the snowbound mail coach, disappearing into trail-less winter. Now I was paralysed; like a broken-winged bird, trailing in circles. Feeling a presence behind me, I turned to find Peg.

‘Look, mistress. The hunt is coming up the High Street.'

I quickly turned to where she pointed; the metallic ringing of hooves built to a crescendo as the Earlby Hunt came into view. About thirty riders were approaching, the leaders in scarlet, swaggering as they swept past the open-mouthed locals. Milling like a restless tide about the horses' hocks were a mass of yelping hounds, their tails up and eyes bright. I searched from face to face for Michael, but I could not find him. I was surprised to see a few women were amongst their number. By his own account, Michael did ride to hounds, but had never invited me even to see him off.

The leading horses soon towered over us, glossy giants with hooves trotting dangerously close. I recognised a few unpleasant men from the George, and sent up a silent prayer for any foxes abroad that day.

Suddenly, Peg clutched my arm. ‘There. Look. It's her.'

She was swivelling on her tiptoes. ‘Miss Sybilla Claybourn!'

I tried to follow her line of sight – the cavalcade had largely passed us, and I had only a rear view of the riders. Yes – near the front, in the distant thick of the pack, was an elegant young lady. I could just see the feathers on her tilted hat bouncing jauntily; her military blue coat was nipped very tight at her narrow waist. She was handsome, in a stiff-backed, look-at-me fashion. Her hair, tightly curled beneath her jaunty hat, was unmistakably very dark. So that is her, I thought, feeling entirely helpless against such a rival. She was all that Peg had hinted at: well-turned-out, pleasure-loving, irresistible to men.

As I paced back down the High Street I was struck by my own stupefaction. Good and bad, right and wrong; all swirled in a maelstrom that I couldn't stop, like dead leaves spinning. Whatever compass I had used as a guide on my life's path had irrevocably broken.

Not knowing what to do, I did nothing. When weary of my room I walked mournfully in our park, dreading I might otherwise see Miss Claybourn again. When the worst of December's rain abated, I set off each morning after breakfast, my boots and hems soon muddy, and my face warm. I had a few favoured spots in the woodland, but my favourite remained the dilapidated summerhouse. Though I never again approached the tunnel door, I fed the stove with dead branches and took my sketchbook out, finding solace in the movement of pencil on paper.

I felt a strange hunger to depict my memories, struggling to make sense of all that had happened. I drew my empty bed with its ornate hangings and tassels, the bed sheets rumpled and twisted. I scored in a long, sooty black hair, but the snake of it disappeared in the mass of shading. Another day I depicted the bed occupied by Michael and myself, our bodies melded and twisted, my hair spread like a rippled cloak across the pillow. One awful day I drew the scene at the tower, a phantasmagorical Michael and his lover emerging in the moonlight – it was an inky, nib-scraping piece, like a nightmare etched by Mr Fuseli. Finally, I propped the drawings up against the walls, black-scored rectangles repelling the low winter's light. But it was useless; no epiphany occurred. They were, in the end, only ink and paper.

Each night I let Michael run on about his troubles. He assured me constantly he was striving to move matters forward at Whitelow. Nevertheless, I began to wonder how it was that any man could be so self-confounding. Obstacle after obstacle rose before him, like waves upon an ocean. It was not that Michael was incompetent, only slapdash; he did not lack drive, only consistency. He got into petty quarrels, he sent out ill-drafted orders, he was disappointed by unreliable associates. Yet, all the time, I asked myself: could this be a disguise for the wickedness described by Peg? Sadly, I concluded that to preserve his fragile prestige, it might well be.

One night I made an excuse to go upstairs early, but instead of going to my room, I ascended to my studio and re-read Peter's invitation. I tried to summon a reply, but nothing promising entered my head. Above me hung my painting of Delafosse, its rows of windows mostly empty; its massy bulk recalling a prison for the tiny image of a woman trapped at the window. God in Heaven, I thought, what am I to do?

A step on the stair gave me a moment's warning.

‘Peg?' I called. I would be glad of a chance to confide my desperation.

‘Grace.' It was Michael. He strode in and looked about.

‘So this is your hiding place.' I forced my hands to remain still; not to snatch up my sketchbook, containing my furious pictures of him. Only when he turned his back to gaze at a sketch I had made of the coiling-haired angel on the staircase, did I succeed in pushing Peter's letter under a blotter.

‘Do you like my angel? It is the Blair crest, I believe.'