Fourpenny Flyer (18 page)

Her father grabbed at her, trying to pull her down on the chair again, tugging at her hair and shrieking at her to be still, and her mother beat her as though she was demented, terrible blows that cut her arms and her face until her whole body was slippery with terrified sweat, and she couldn't run any longer, and she couldn't stand either because there was no strength in her legs, and she fell sideways onto the flagstones, wrenching her hair from her father's grasp so violently that clumps of it came away in his fingers.

For a few seconds they were all quite still, looking at each other, while the Sowerbys blew like horses and the fire spat and hissed, and two drops of blood fell from Harriet's forefinger into two neat red circles on the flagstones. Then she began to cry, in long, drawn-out, forlorn sobs that hurt her throat and frightened her parents.

‘Get to bed,' Mr Sowerby said abruptly. ‘We don't want to see your ugly face again tonight.' The sooner she was out of sight the better.

Harriet crawled up the stairs on her hands and knees, sobbing and groaning, and stumbled through her parents' room, barking her shins against furniture that she could barely see, and fell onto her truckle bed in a state of total exhaustion. But even then, with the beating over and alone in the dark cell of her room, she couldn't stop crying. She wept on and on until the ache in her chest was sobbed away and she had no more energy left to cry with and no more tears to shed. Then she lifted herself wearily from the mattress, covered herself with her blanket and lay shivering in the dark.

And her thoughts went round and round in an endless, useless circle all night long. She had disobeyed her parents, which was certainly a sin. And she'd fought against them and she was glad she'd done it. For she wasn't sinful. Not this time. Writing a letter to a gentleman as
proper and kind as Mr Easter couldn't possibly be a sin. She knew it. And as she lay stiffly under her blanket, she also knew, in that private innermost core of her mind and emotions, that she hated her mother and father and that she always would.

She was still cold and still wide-awake when the dawn began to trawl a faint grey light across the little space of her window. She got up very stiffly and limped to the door to see if it was possible to get out quietly and go downstairs for a drink of water, because she was desperately thirsty. But the door was locked. And there was no water in the ewer either, because, as she remembered now, she'd been sent upstairs before she had a chance to fill it. Her mouth was so terribly dry it was an effort to swallow. But then it was an effort to do anything, she felt so sore.

She looked at her arms in the faint half-light, examining them quietly and dispassionately almost as though they belonged to someone else. They were both blotched with dark bruises and there were two long cuts on her right forearm that were still oozing blood. She examined her chemise, which was torn and bloodstained and very dirty. And she touched her face very delicately with her finger tips, because it was extremely tender and very swollen. Then she knelt down beside her narrow window and peered at the faint image of her head and shoulders in the darker corner of the glass. Her face was so disfigured she couldn't recognize it. One eye was half closed by two dark mounds of bruised flesh that puffed out beside and beneath it, there was a lump on her temple and both her lips were cut and swollen. I look like a monster, she thought.

But she didn't cry. She'd gone beyond tears now. She was quite calm. She knew that there was nothing she could do except wrap herself up in her blanket again and endure until one or other of her parents unlocked the door. They had done their worst, just as she had always feared they would. Now it was simply a matter of waiting.

Miss Pettie was rather upset when Mr Sowerby arrived on her doorstep that afternoon to tell her that Harriet would
not be accepting her kind invitation to the Victory Ball after all.

‘She is being kept to her room,' he said, ‘as a punishment for a most grievous sin.' And the expression on his face implied that it was too shameful to be talked about.

‘I am uncommon sorry to hear it,' Miss Pettie said. And a most uncomfortable suspicion came winging into her mind. What if the sin were something to do with Mr Easter and the letters? Oh surely not! Harriet was always most discreet and, besides, there was no harm in a letter or two. Surely not. But it worried her just the same. ‘I shall look forward to seeing her on Sunday,' she said, ‘when I trust she will be quite restored to obedience.'

But it was a great disappointment that Harriet would miss the Victory Ball especially as all the Easters were due to attend. It quite took the gilt off the gingerbread, which was a pity for this second Victory Ball was even more lavish than the first.

Mrs Easter was in splendid form in a blue and green silk gown cut in the very latest style and very much envied by all the ladies, who were either complimentary or scathing about it according to their natures, and Billy was dancing quite rapturously with his beloved Matilda, but John was very quiet and barely danced at all. He made no mention of the absent Harriet and that upset Miss Pettie too.

‘I shall look out for her most particularly on Sunday,' she said to Jane, when the ball was over and she was home at last and her old servant was patiently unhooking her ball gown. ‘She will be forgiven by then, surely to goodness, whatever the sin. And I can't believe it was as bad as Mr Sowerby made out for our Harriet is too kindly a creature, wouldn't you say so, Jane?'

‘She's pleasant enough in all conscience ma'am,' Jane agreed, 'but if she don't obey the fifth Commandment, there en't a deal of hope for her, nor no Victory Balls neither.' She approved of stern discipline, did Jane. And when you've been sitting up until two in the morning waiting for your mistress to come home, it is hard to be full of Christian charity.

‘I shall look out for her notwithstanding,' Miss Pettie said.

And she looked out.

But there was no sign of Harriet in chapel that Sunday, and when Miss Pettie made discreet enquiries she discovered that nobody had seen her at all since Tuesday. Which was five whole days. By now Miss Pettie's hesitant suspicion was beginning to turn into alarm. She spent the rest of the Sabbath worrying and praying and all of Monday and Tuesday hoping in vain that Harriet would visit, and finally, early on Wednesday morning, she trotted next door to confide in Bessie Thistlethwaite.

‘The family's all gone back ter London, Miss Pettie,' Bessie said, coming in to the hall to welcome her visitor when the parlour maid had admitted her. ‘Mr John went Thursday in such a rush you'd never believe, and Mrs Easter was off Sat'day, and now Mr Billy's gone too by the first coach yesterday morning. We're all on our ownsome, as yer might say.'

‘Yes,' Miss Pettie said, clutching at her curls in her anxiety. ‘I rather imagined that is how it would be. But 'tis no matter, Mrs Thistlethwaite, for 'twas you and Mr Thistlethwaite I came to see.'

‘In that case, Miss Pettie,' Bessie said, ‘would you care ter come in to my parlour? You've just caught us in. Thiss is off ter Norwich in 'alf an hour.'

So Miss Pettie went into the parlour and Thiss and Bessie listened to her most seriously while she told her tale.

‘You think they've locked 'er in fer writin' to our Mr John then, Miss Pettie?' Thiss asked.

‘I fear so,' Miss Pettie confessed. ‘And 'tis all on my account. What shall I do?'

‘Never you mind, Miss Pettie,' Bessie commiserated. ‘Don't you go a-frettin' yourself. Thiss'll think a' somethink. Wontcher, Thiss?'

Thiss stood up and took his pipe from the rack in the chimney corner and, after filling it slowly and thoughtfully, and then lighting it with Vesuvian clouds of smoke and much puffing, he sat down on the settle again and delivered his verdict.

‘If Mrs Easter was 'ere, I should say we oughter tell Mrs Easter,' he said. ‘Being she's the most forceful lady I
knows. But she ain't 'ere. She's off in Hertfordshire somewhere, an' a fair ol' journey away. That bein' so, my opinion of it is this. They was Mr John's letters what caused the shindig so you sez, Miss Pettie, which do seem a queer thing ter me when we considers what a fine gentleman 'e is. But no accountin' fer taste as the butler said when 'is master spread jam on the bloaters. So bein' they was his letters, I reckon 'e should know the outcome a' the correspondence, so ter speak. One of us should write an' tell 'im. What I'm quite willin' ter do, if you're agreeable to it, Miss Pettie.'

‘Oh what a relief 'twould be to me,' Miss Pettie said. ‘When could it be done?'

‘If it ain't like ter take more'n twenty minutes,' Thiss said, ‘I could do it fer you now. I got me pipe lit.'

So the letter was sent, and arrived in Bedford Square the following morning while Billy and John were eating their breakfast.

It reduced John to prowling agitation. ‘Read it, Billoh,' he said tossing the letter onto his brother's plate.

‘Steady on!' Billy said. ‘Now it's all over butter. Sit down, do, it can't be as bad as all that.' But when he'd read the letter too he grew serious at once. ‘We must go down and see about this directly,' he said. ‘We can't have young ladies punished for writing to us Easters, dammit. Indeed, we can't. What's the world coming to?'

‘Do you think it's true?' John said, drumming on the table with his fingers in his agitation.

‘We'll take the first coach up on Saturday morning,' Billy said. ‘That gives you today and tomorrow to find somebody else to do the stamping for you. Mr Lowther might be just the man. He's sharp enough. Then we'll see.'

‘But what will we do when we see – whatever we see?'

‘Time enough for that,' Billy said practically, ‘when we see it. Come on!'

It was a difficult journey up to Bury. They travelled on the ‘Phenomena' with a rapid change of horses every ten miles, so at least it took as little time as possible, and the weather was fine and the roads dry. But in his present state of indecision and confusion, John found every minute unbearable. It was so necessary for him to be in control of his life or at least to know what he was going to do, and now he was being carried along with about as much volition as a leaf in the wind, feeling concerned about Harriet and guilt about his own part in the affair, and horribly powerless. To make matters worse, Mr Wiggins the coachman would insist on engaging him in cheerful conversation and cracking jokes with Billy, ‘being we're partners in the same way a' business, if you takes me meanin'. It was all very difficult.

But once they'd arrived in Angel Hill and Thiss had been sent for and Bessie had bustled them into the dining room and served them breakfast and told them everything she knew about ‘that poor Miss Sowerby', everything changed.

‘They beat the poor soul sommink cruel, Mr John,' Bessie said. ‘Hours it was, ‘cordin' ter what Mrs Kirby said when I went down ter the laundry, and the poor thing cryin' and beggin' fer mercy all the time. 'Tain't nat'rul Mr John, now is it? And since then, she been locked indoors. Never out of 'er room a minute, ‘cordin' ter Mrs Kirby. Always up at the windy a-lookin' out, an' so pale an' ill an' unhappy, poor soul. Which ain't ter be wondered at, now is it, Mr John, all things considerin'?'

John listened to her with growing distress and anger. By
the time she'd finished her tale, certainty had solidified inside him like a column of ice. Now he knew exactly what he was going to do.

‘She must be taken away from such cruelty,' he said. ‘I will rescue her.'

‘Bravo!' Billy said, chortling with delight and Bessie clapped her hands together like a child, relieved to hear it and thrilled by the romance of it.

But Thiss was cautious. ‘That'ud take a deal 'a doin', Mr John,' he said. ‘How d'yer propose ter go about it, if I may make so bold as to ask?'

John had very little idea. He simply knew it would be done. ‘I shall go to Churchgate Street,' he said, deciding as he spoke, ‘and see Mr and Mrs Sowerby and persuade them that it was polite and proper for Miss Sowerby to write to me and that they ought to let her out of the house. She shan't be locked in a minute longer, not if I can help it.'

‘They'll be a mortal tricky couple ter persuade,' Thiss warned. ‘'Ard as nails the pair of 'em. She's got a face like a flat iron, an' 'e's swallered a Bible. What if it don't work?'

‘Then I shall think of something else.' There was no deterring him now.

‘I shall stay here and drink another cup of your excellent tea, Bessie, and wait the outcome,' Billy decided.

‘I shall be at the stables should yer need anythink,' Thiss said. ‘Take young Tom along with yer, Mr John. Keep it in the fam'ly like. Ain't no need fer the rest a' the servants ter know what's afoot. ‘E's a useful lad, though I sez so who shouldn't. 'E could nip back 'ere sharpish and let us know if there was anythink you was wantin'.'

So Tom was sent for and his cap straightened and his blue jacket dusted down by his mother and was given instructions by his father. ‘You're ter stick by Mr John 'ere, an' do anythink 'e says.'

‘Right you are, Guvner,' Tom said, nodding and grinning until his jaw was in danger of dislocation. ‘Always wanted ter be a gentleman's gentleman, I 'ave. Right you are!'

‘Gentleman's gentleman, my eye!' his father mocked. ‘Errand boy you are, and mind you looks sharp about it.'

‘Sharp as a razor, Pa,' Tom promised, still grinning.

And off they went.

Churchgate Street was crowded with people and clogged with carts and carriages that morning as the daily shoppers took their empty baskets up the hill to the markets and returned with them laden. There was so much noise in the street that John wasn't really surprised when his first knock at Mrs Sowerby's low door brought no response.