Little Bones (25 page)

The warden gave Jane a little push. ‘I’ll be back,’ he told her. ‘I can be here in less than two minutes if I hear you’re causing bother.’

‘You had better come inside,’ said the maid, talking as if Jane might be deaf, an imbecile, or both. ‘But wipe your boots first.’

The house made her tremble. It was nicer than the rectory. The walls were lined with dark oak panelling and paintings of sweeping country scenes, where huntsmen in pink coats chased a skinny orange fox. A grandfather clock ticked loudly in the corner. The carpet, a tangled flowery fawn, looked like velvet.

‘You must wait inside the kitchen,’ said the maid. ‘Mrs Niven isn’t ready. Do you understand?’

‘I understand,’ said Jane.

‘I understand,
miss
,’ said the maid. ‘I am not an inmate of this place. I haven’t done a thing wrong all my life, and I never will do either.’

The kitchen was small. Another girl was in there slicing bread. She stopped when she saw Jane approaching, and, catching the maid’s eyes, they burst into giggles. ‘Can’t you stand any straighter?’ she said.

‘Shoulders back!’ said the maid, saluting with her hand. ‘Attention!’

Blushing, Jane dug her soapy fingernails into her small lemony palms.

‘Make her a cup of tea,’ said the maid, recovering herself. ‘We don’t want her mouthing off to the missus like the last one we had.’

‘I haven’t time for tea-making,’ said the girl.

‘A cup of tea now might save an awful lot of bother later on.’

‘I don’t mind, miss,’ said Jane. ‘I wouldn’t want to stop you working, I can see you’re busy and I’m quite happy to wait here without it.’

The two girls stood open-mouthed before they started laughing. ‘Lord above,’ said the maid. ‘She’s picked a right one this time, make no mistake. What did you say your name was?’

‘I didn’t say, miss, but it’s Jane. Jane Stretch.’

And the girls started laughing again.

Jane was told to sit on a chair at the kitchen table, while the girls carried on with their duties. The kitchen was like a treasure trove after all those days in her cell. Her eyes were startled by the colours. A pale yellow bowl held hen’s eggs, a few feathers floating around the speckled white shells. Jars of preserved fruit stood in rows, and in the light they made stained-glass windows of cherries, plums and apricots. Herbs grew from pots on the windowsill. The girl wore a
pink
gingham dress beneath her apron, making Jane look down at her own drab outfit, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were cold. The maid reappeared, ordering Jane to follow her. She moved briskly and Jane hobbled behind. She wanted to stop to look at everything they passed.

Mrs Niven was waiting in the sitting room. ‘Miss Stretch,’ she said, holding out her hand. Jane took it and curtsied, because she had no idea how to address a real lady, something Mrs Niven most certainly had the look of. She was small and slim with chestnut hair and large brown eyes, which seemed to take up half her face. Her smile was warm and wide, though there was a hint of tension in her lips. She was wearing a simple blue dress and a long string of pearls.

‘I am so glad you have come. Please sit down and make yourself comfortable. Olive will bring tea, and we can have half an hour to ourselves before my other guests arrive.’

Jane felt awkward on the sofa. It was the palest shade of pink and she did not want to dirty it. The room was wide and long. Vases of evergreens gave off the pungent smell of a clean outdoors. A fire was burning. A white fluff-ball of a cat was stretched out in front of it and purring like a newly oiled engine.

‘That’s Snowbell,’ said Mrs Niven. ‘I hope you don’t mind cats?’

‘Oh no, ma’am, not at all.’

‘My husband has no patience with her, and of course he objects to all the white hairs which he constantly finds sticking on his trousers.’

‘She’s very pretty, ma’am. Cats make a home, so my grandmother used to say.’

Mrs Niven folded her hands on her lap. Her fingers were entwined. A wide gold bangle studded with opals fell at the end of her sleeve. Jane looked quickly away in case Mrs Niven thought she was a thief, eyeing up the loot.

‘Are you comfortable?’ she asked. ‘Are you in any pain?’

‘No, ma’am, I am very comfortable, thank you.’

‘I have heard you are very intelligent.’

‘Not really, ma’am,’ Jane blurted, because hadn’t Mr Henshaw warned her to keep all her brains to herself.

‘You have led an interesting life?’

‘Not really, ma’am, no. Well, maybe a little.’

The maid brought in a tray with the tea things. ‘Thank you, Olive, I’ll pour.’ Mrs Niven looked at Jane. ‘There will be things to eat later on,’ she said, ‘when the ladies arrive. Nice things. I wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite with anything just now. Harriet makes lovely cheese scones, and I think we’re having trout. Are we having trout, Olive?’

‘Poached trout, yes, ma’am,’ said the maid.

‘Wonderful. I hear the food has improved inside Newgate,’ she said. ‘I have been reading the reports.’

‘Oh, yes, ma’am,’ said Jane, because what else could she say? She was sitting opposite the wife of the governor. She could hardly say,
Well, if they have improved, ma’am, I would hate to see what they were like before. I wouldn’t give the so-called soup to a dog. There are often stones in the gruel, and I once found a large dirty thumbnail floating in my cocoa
.

‘Excellent. That will be all for now, Olive. I’ll ring when I need you again.’

While Mrs Niven busied herself with the tea, Jane looked at the room. The wallpaper was decorated with pointed green leaves, as if the outdoors had found its way inside. Above their heads a large chandelier fell shivering from the ceiling.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t look too closely at it,’ said Mrs Niven. ‘It is probably covered in dust.’

‘It looks like something frozen, ma’am,’ said Jane.

Smiling, Mrs Niven asked Jane how she would like to take her tea, and as she nodded at the milk jug, Jane’s heart lurched, because suddenly she was back inside the consulting room listening to Swift’s plans for Johnny Treble.

‘You like sugar?’ Mrs Niven asked.

Jane nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am, of course,’ she said, wondering who on earth would not like the taste of sugar in their tea. This tea tasted fragrant and rich. It was nothing like the dishwater they threw at you in Newgate.

‘Tea is more than a refreshment, is it not? When I was in India we drank it day and night. It reminded me of home. It would keep my stomach settled and often made do for a meal.’

‘You went to India, ma’am?’ said Jane, with more than a little enthusiasm in her voice. ‘I know someone who went to India. Her name is Liza Smithson. She worked for Mrs Dunstan-Harris. Do you know her?’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t say that I do. Was she in Calcutta?’

‘No, ma’am, Madras.’

‘We were in Calcutta for a year, and it is as ghastly as they say it is. We lost our son there.’

‘I am very sorry, ma’am.’

‘Thank you.’ She straightened her pearls and slowly lifted her eyes. ‘One of the worst things,’ she said, ‘was having to leave him there. His little grave will be tended by servants, if they remember, although perhaps the plot is already overgrown, and he will think that no one loved him.’

‘Oh, I am sure he will understand, ma’am,’ said Jane, thinking of the hole she had dug for the boot box.

‘It is something I will never know, not in this life anyway. I still have my daughter. She married last year. A charming man who has taken her to Dublin, and my grandchildren, when they arrive, God willing, will be Irish!’

‘I have heard Dublin is a splendid place, ma’am,’ said Jane, looking at the window, where a few dark leaves were pressing at the glass. She could hear a peal of laughter as Mrs Niven rolled her eyes. ‘Mrs Abbott,’ she said, ‘is early.’

Olive came for the tea things, and Mrs Niven stood, straightening the folds of her skirt. Jane did the same. ‘Please don’t be nervous,’ smiled Mrs Niven, ‘you are our guest. You are not on trial here.’

Mrs Abbott came through the door like someone who had just fought a storm. She was a short, stout woman, her yellow curls mashed against her forehead. She was wearing a stiff cream-coloured dress that made Jane think of a well-ironed tablecloth.

‘My, my,’ said Mrs Abbott, ‘it is always such an adventure, all those doors opening and closing and goodness knows who you might bump into, though the warden, Mr Butterfield, is always such a gentleman.
I
took his arm this morning. We saw a glimpse of the Black Maria and of course I was jumping with nerves. Oh,’ she said, spotting Jane. ‘I didn’t see you there. You must be the cripple who did—who … who is Mrs Niven’s special guest and I am very pleased to meet you.’

‘Good morning, ma’am,’ said Jane, lowering her head a little.

Mrs Abbott laughed. ‘You speak just like a lady! Where is it that you come from? I did read about the place, but it has quite gone out of my head.’

‘Lately from Covent Garden, ma’am, but I was born in Southwark.’

‘Covent Garden? I was there only yesterday. I was at Mr Jackson’s the optometrist. I don’t suppose you know him?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘And Southwark. I have never known anyone who came out of Southwark.’ She sat herself down with a little puff of breath. Jane could smell talcum powder, and if she wasn’t much mistaken, a very slight whiff of the gin bottle.

‘This is Jane Stretch,’ said Mrs Niven.

‘Of course it is, and she is just how I pictured her.’

Soon the other ladies made their appearance. Mrs Talbot, a tall straight curtain pole of a woman, was still shuddering at the ordeal of all the locks and keys. ‘It was terrible,’ she said, ‘and as we passed through the yard, a high-pitched wailing was coming from one of the windows, like someone being strangled. I can still hear it now.’ The maid put down the tea things and brought Mrs Talbot a large glass of sherry.

‘And how many times have you visited me here?’ asked Mrs Niven. ‘At least twenty.’

Jane sat quietly looking at her hands as Mrs Talbot went on. ‘If I visited a hundred times, I would still not be used to it,’ she grimaced, quickly draining the sherry. ‘It is terrifying.’

‘Nonsense,’ said another woman, still unpeeling her gloves. She went to kiss Mrs Niven on the cheek. ‘It is how we get to the house, it is nothing more than that. I am used to it. Why, when we were living in Singapore, to get to our estate was worse that walking through any part of London. Ralph carried a gun, and he used it.’

Jane looked startled. Was her husband a murderer?

‘Oh,’ said Mrs Talbot, ‘do we have to talk of guns? Of course, I don’t mind guns in the country, that’s where they’re supposed to be, and of course if we didn’t have guns then we would never eat pheasant, but to talk of guns as actual weapons, look, I am trembling all over again.’

‘Olive,’ said Mrs Niven, ‘do leave the sherry decanter with Mrs Talbot, it seems that she’s in need of it.’

The last to arrive was a mouse-like woman, in both appearance and manner, who giggled nervously at everything, from the seat Mrs Niven offered, to an enquiry regarding her health. She wore a dark violet dress with grey trimmings. Her face was small and pointed. Her eyes were in a permanent state of creasing, as if her eyesight wasn’t quite as it should be.

When everyone was settled Mrs Niven stood and clapped her hands. ‘Welcome, ladies. Friends. Let our meeting begin. Today we are honoured to have with
us
an inmate of this prison, Miss Jane Stretch, who I am sure will make for a fascinating discussion.’

The ladies peered at Jane, who smiled. It looked as if they were waiting for something. Was she supposed to speak? ‘Thank you for your kind invitation,’ she said. The mousey woman applauded.

‘She’s done nothing yet,’ said Mrs Abbott.

Done nothing? thought Jane. Were they expecting tricks?

Mrs Niven smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ she said kindly, ‘you could tell us a little about your life. Has it been very difficult?’

‘Does it hurt?’ said the woman whose gloves were now sitting on the arm of the sofa. ‘My name is Sarah Moss,’ she said. ‘I have a cousin whose left leg is significantly shorter than his right. The boys at school made his life very difficult.’

‘I liked school,’ Jane told them. ‘My teacher was always very kind.’

The women muttered their approval.

‘My sister and I had to leave a little early,’ she told them. ‘We moved house and things changed.’

‘And can your sister read and write?’ asked Mrs Niven.

‘Well enough,’ she said.

‘They don’t really need it,’ said Mrs Abbott, turning to her companions. ‘The poorer classes have no time for such things.’

‘I can’t imagine it, can you?’ said Mrs Talbot. ‘Not to read a menu. How on earth would they order a meal?’

‘I’m sure that’s the least of their worries,’ said Mrs
Niven
, who suddenly remembered her own refreshments, and leant to ring the little servant’s bell.

‘I get quite excited by menus,’ said the mouse. ‘Though they can be confusing. I once ordered Bombay duck. Whoever would have thought it was a fish? I imagined I’d be eating sliced duck flavoured with Indian spices. Everyone laughed. Even David. It had the most unpleasant odour. I’m surprised I wasn’t sick.’

‘Bombay duck is disgusting,’ said Mrs Niven.

Jane thought it could not be worse than Newgate’s turnip stew, and she would happily eat a net of Bombay duck, however bad the smell. She wondered if these women had ever eaten burtas, or chitchee curry, and she was just about to ask when the maid appeared pushing a trolley, and Mrs Abbott clapped her hands, saying after all the excitement she was ravenous.

‘Jane,’ said Mrs Niven, handing her a plate, ‘as you are our special guest, you must choose your food first. Do take anything you like the look of. Our refreshments are served the new way, which means you help yourself.’ Mrs Abbott, looking disappointed, clutched her own empty plate, hoping Jane wouldn’t be as greedy as the last inmate they had met (Mary Smith, forger).

Walking up to the trolley of food, Jane couldn’t stop licking her lips. There were cucumber sandwiches, strips of poached trout, stuffed eggs, cheese scones, curls of yellow butter, sliced honeyed ham, salads, cheeses. Her excitement was such, she could barely lift the tongs. As the other ladies helped themselves and the maid poured tea, Jane sat quite oblivious, eating the contents of her plate with relish,
occasionally
hearing snippets of their chatter.
Has Dulcie quite recovered from the shock of it? I saw them both in church, bold as you like. Una looks marvellous, considering. Have you seen the little travel clocks in Asprey’s?
When her plate was nothing but crumbs, she licked the tip of her finger and dabbed every last one onto the end of it, before sticking it into her mouth.