Scarlet Widow (9 page)

She wondered if she would ever be happy – as happy as she had been with her father and mother – or whether her life would continue to be an endless succession of daily chores and duties, with church on Sundays. Standing in the sunlight, though, she had a feeling that her future was calling her and that somewhere beyond the hills to the west, where the sun was sinking, she would find the happiness that she had lost.

It was then that she heard a creaking sound behind her. She turned around and saw that while she had been staring out of the window, her bedroom door had been opened, and Jeremy was standing on the landing outside, looking at her.

She seized her petticoats from the bed and bunched them up to her neck to cover herself, feeling her cheeks flushing hot.

‘Jeremy! What are you doing? Stop staring at me! Go away!’

Jeremy was clearly embarrassed that she had caught him out, but he shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile and said, ‘What does it matter? We’re going to be married soon anyway.’

‘Who says we’re going to be married?’

‘My mother, of course. She has your life all mapped for you. What do you think she’s going to do now that she’s getting old? She’ll be forty-three next Easter! She’ll need somebody to run the house for her, and to give her heirs. She didn’t take you in out of the goodness of her heart, you know.’

‘I’m not going to marry
you
!’

‘Then who? Who would you find to take any interest in you, apart from me?’

Beatrice didn’t answer, but closed her door and pushed the wooden wedge underneath it. She waited, listening, but after a while she heard Jeremy going back downstairs.

She turned back to the window. The sunlight had gone now and the sky was growing dusky. ‘
Who would take an interest in you
?’ Jeremy had asked her, and she couldn’t help thinking of Francis and the way he looked at her when they passed each other in the street.

Cousin Sarah called out, ‘Elizabeth! Agnes! Jenks! I want you all in here right away! You too, Beatrice!’

They gathered in the dining room. It was raining outside, quite hard, and Beatrice could hear the rain rattling through the branches of the apple trees. It was gloomy, too, for an early April afternoon.

On the polished dining table stood a tall glass confectionery jar half filled with tarnished brown coins, pennies and farthings, and a few silver sixpences. Cousin Sarah was standing on the opposite side of the table with her arms folded and her lips tightly pursed.

Beatrice had been brushing cobwebs off the bedroom ceilings and she was still holding her ostrich-feather duster. Agnes stood next to her, her sleeves rolled up and her forearms reddened halfway up to her elbows from plunging them into the washtub. Behind them stood Elizabeth, smelling of sweat and suet, and Jenks, a young man who did odd jobs around the house, dug the garden and tended the horses. Jenks kept swivelling his eyes around the dining room and sniffing. He was the oldest son of one of the local metalworkers, but his father had considered him too much of a liability to be working with molten iron and so had found him employment with Sarah Minchin.

Beatrice could see all of them in the slightly distorted mirror behind cousin Sarah’s back, and somehow the subtle flaws in the glass made them look like strangers pretending to be them.

‘I am deeply disappointed in one of you,’ said cousin Sarah. ‘All of you must be aware that I collect coins in this jar, which I donate every Easter to the destitute in St Philip’s parish. What you may
not
know is that I count them at the end of each week, after our Sunday meal.’

They glanced at one another sideways. Jenks was probably the only one of them who couldn’t guess what cousin Sarah was going to say next.

She picked up the jar and gave it a single sharp shake. ‘When I counted the contents of this jar last Sunday, it contained two pounds seven shillings and sixpence. When I counted them today, I found that I had only two pounds one shilling and twopence. Since I do not believe that coins can spontaneously evaporate, or that this house is haunted by thievish spirits, I have no option but to conclude that one of you has been stealing. Six shillings and fourpence, to be exact. Six shillings and fourpence! And what would any of you do with such a sum of money?’

Agnes instantly put up her hand. ‘If you please, Mrs Minchin, it weren’t me what took it.’

‘Oh, no? So why are you in such a rush to deny it?’

‘Because I don’t want you believing it might have been me, because it weren’t.’

‘So who else could it have been? It must have been one of you. That money didn’t disappear by magic. Elizabeth? Didn’t I hear you complaining that you needed new shoes? Six shillings and fourpence! That would buy you a good stout pair of shoes, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But I didn’t steal your money, ma’am, and I will swear to that on the Holy Bible.’

‘Jenks!’ snapped cousin Sarah. Jenks blinked at her and cupped his left hand around his ear to show her that he was listening.

‘Have you been dipping your hand into my jar of coins, young man?’

Jenks frowned at his hand, turning it this way and that. It was obvious that he didn’t understand what she meant.

‘Have you taken any of my money, Jenks? Have you been helping yourself from out of this jar?’

Jenks vigorously shook his head. ‘No, Mrs Chimney. Not me.’

‘
Minchin
,’ cousin Sarah corrected him, but Beatrice could tell by the way she closed her eyes that this wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last.

Then cousin Sarah said, ‘Well! Since none of you will confess to taking my money, but one of you must have done, then all of you will have to pay it back. Elizabeth, Agnes, Jenks – you will each have threepence deducted from your weekly wages until the loss is made up, and from you, Beatrice, I will take a shilling from the proceeds of your father’s business.’

‘But
I
didn’t steal any of your money, cousin Sarah!’ Beatrice protested. ‘Why should I have stolen it, when I have so much money of my own?’

‘You do
not
have money of your own, Beatrice. The proceeds from your father’s business are under my trusteeship now, to recompense me for taking care of you, and believe me, that money will not last forever. What then? Will I throw you out on to the street? Of course not.’

‘But I still didn’t take any money out of your jar!’

Cousin Sarah shrugged. ‘I believe that you probably didn’t, my dear. But if the true culprit refuses to come forward and confess, what choice do I have? Why should the poor and the hungry of this parish have to suffer because one of you is so dishonest? Why should
they
go without shoes, or food for that matter? Goodness me, six shillings and fourpence would buy them three whole pigs, or a dozen rabbits.’

Elizabeth said, ‘Threepence a week, ma’am? I have my own family to feed.’

‘I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but my mind is made up. Or would you rather I called for a bailiff? Please get back to your chores, all of you. If any of you wish to come to me privately and admit that you stole my money, you may do so at any time. In the spirit of Christian charity I will not have you arrested, but I will expect you to return it.’

They left the dining room and went downstairs to the kitchen. Elizabeth was shaking with anger. ‘I have never in my life done a single dishonest deed!’ she protested. She picked up her pastry-pin and clubbed the ball of pie dough that she had been rolling out on the kitchen table, as if it were cousin Sarah’s head, ‘For Mrs Minchin to accuse me of such a thing and then to take threepence out of my wages! It’s scandalous!’

‘Well, it weren’t me, nee-thuh,’ said Agnes. ‘If I thought that I could foind another jub, Oi’d walk right out of that door and not come back.’

Jenks scratched his head and shrugged. ‘I never took it. What would I spend it on? Besides, I didn’t even know she had it. Or did I? I can’t remember if I did or not.’

‘Perhaps somebody came into the house from the street and stole it,’ said Elizabeth. ‘The front door’s often left ajar, isn’t it, when Agnes is sweeping up?’

‘That doesn’t really make sense,’ said Beatrice. ‘If a thief had come in from the street, they would have taken the whole jar, wouldn’t they? I think it’s somebody in the house, because they thought they could take a few coins without them being missed.’

‘There’s nobody, is there, apart from us, and Mr Roderick, and Master Jeremy?’

‘Well, we shall have to see,’ said Beatrice.

‘And what does that mean, pray?’ demanded Elizabeth. ‘I’m still going to be short by threepence a week. And I can’t see Mrs Minchin explaining to my children why they have to go a day without milk.’

*

Cousin Sarah spent Thursday and Friday night away with friends in Edgbaston. A woman she had known since childhood was dying of typhoid fever. She returned early the following afternoon, and Agnes took her a cup of tea and some biscuits, but after less than an hour she called them into the dining room again.

The glass confectionery jar was standing on the table in front of her, but this time it was empty. She had counted out all of the pennies and halfpennies into shilling piles and stacked up ten sixpences to make a crown.

‘Are you
mocking
me?’ she asked them. None of them answered.

‘Are you deliberately trying to provoke me into having you dragged in front of a court and imprisoned?’

‘I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, ma’am,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Mocking? How?’

‘Can’t you
guess
, Elizabeth, or are you a noodle? The sheer barefaced impertinence of it! There is yet more money missing from my jar! Three shillings and sevenpence-halfpenny, to be exact! I insist on your telling me
now
which one of you has stolen it!’

Agnes started to sob. ‘I don’t know who took it, Mrs Minchin, and that’s the God’s honest truth.’

Jenks did nothing but blink and look confused.

‘I am at a loss!’ said cousin Sarah. ‘I have never
known
such barefaced dishonesty, not in all of my life!’

‘Your fingers, cousin Sarah,’ said Beatrice. ‘Look at your fingers.’

‘
What
?’

‘Look at your fingers. You see those stains?’

Cousin Sarah slowly raised her hands. Her right thumb and fingertips were speckled with purplish-brown blotches, and in the palm of her left hand there was a much larger blotch. She wiped her hands against her apron but the blotches wouldn’t come off. She wiped them again, much harder. If anything, though, they looked as if they were growing darker by the second.

‘
What
?’ she repeated. ‘Where did these come from? What have you done to me?

She wiped them even more furiously, again and again. ‘Beatrice! What is this? Did you do this? What have you done to me?
Beatrice
!’

Beatrice went up to her and took hold of her hands. ‘It’s lunar caustic, cousin Sarah. It stains your skin for a while, but it doesn’t harm you. The surgeons use it in the hospitals for healing wounds and papa used to sell it to people who wanted to get rid of warts.’

‘But,
how
? What? How did it get on my hands? How will I remove it?’

‘It comes from the coins. While you were away, I took them out of the jar and I soaked them all in lunar caustic, and then dried them, so that they were all covered in silver salts. I thought that anybody who tried to take them would get black stains on their fingers, like yours. I’m sorry. I was going to tell you what I’d done, I promise. I thought you’d think it was clever. I didn’t know that you would be counting them out so soon.’

Cousin Sarah looked down at her hands again. The blotches on her fingertips had darkened even more until they were almost black. ‘I suppose you went down to the cellar,’ she said. She was so angry that she kept twitching, as if she were about to have an epileptic fit. ‘I should have thrown all of your father’s bottles away, shouldn’t I? All of those potions and all of those powders and all of that – hocus-pocus.’

‘Ma’am?’ said Elizabeth, and then, ‘
Ma’am
?’ even more emphatically. She raised both of her hands, palms outwards, so that cousin Sarah could see that she had no black stains on her fingers. She nudged Agnes with her elbow and Agnes did the same.

‘Go on, Jenks,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Show Mrs Chimney your hands.’

‘Very well,’ snapped cousin Sarah. ‘It appears that I might have misjudged you. You can go now. Get back to your work.’

‘You won’t be taking threepence a week, then, ma’am?’

‘No, of course I won’t, since you appear not to be responsible. Beatrice – how can I remove these dreadful stains? It’s our parish sewing class tomorrow morning. I can’t possibly teach young girls embroidery with my fingers all black like this.’

‘Papa used to use spirit of hartshorn.’

‘In that case, I trust that you have some.’

‘I don’t know, cousin Sarah. I’ll have to go down to the cellar and look.’

‘And if you haven’t?’

‘The apothecary in the High Street will probably stock it. Or, when papa ran out, he used piddle.’

‘He did
what
?’

Beatrice blushed. Her father had always talked to her so straightforwardly that she often forgot that other people could be more prudish. Whenever his hands were stained with lunar caustic he would urinate into a bowl and wash his hands in it, so that the ammonia would bleach out the silver.

She was just about to explain this to cousin Sarah when Jeremy passed the dining-room doorway, very furtively, almost on tiptoes. He had almost reached the front door when one of the floorboards creaked.

‘Jeremy!’ said cousin Sarah, without looking round. ‘You’re not going out, are you, Jeremy? I need you to come to Mrs Jupp’s with me and carry those sacks of old clothing that we collected for the poor.’

Jeremy stopped, but kept his back turned. ‘I can’t, mama. I’ve arranged to meet Frederick.’

‘Frederick can wait. I can’t possibly carry all of those sacks by myself.’

‘You can get Jenks to do it, can’t you?’