The Emerald Comb (26 page)

‘Yes, she is suffering. It is a shame we cannot end her pain.’

‘If only we could. The poor girl. I married her for her youth and vigour, but now she is but a shell of her former self.’ He drew the back of his hand across his forehead. ‘Forgive me, Agnes. I should not speak to you like this. But, you, dear thing, know me so well. You know what I like, and what I want.’

Agnes regarded him silently, her green eyes meeting and holding his. She seemed to read something there, for she nodded, and set her mouth into a firm line. Turning away from him she picked up a discarded pillow and walked towards the bed. An image of her, cushion in hand, leaning over little Barty’s cradle leapt into Bartholomew’s head. But she was not walking towards the cradle in the corner. She was moving towards Georgia, who lay sleeping on her back, her hair spread across the pillow and her arms flung above her head like a baby’s.

Georgia had been so beautiful when he’d first met her. He remembered how she’d made him carry her in the snow, so there would be only a single set of footprints for others to follow.

Agnes held the pillow in front of her. She was standing now at the head of the bed. She glanced back towards him. He gave the slightest nod, almost imperceptible.

She lowered the pillow slowly, carefully, quietly.

Georgia, on the beach in Brighton, the wind whipping at her hair as he asked her to marry him
.

Why had he nodded? What had he consented to, with that nod?

She pressed the pillow onto Georgia’s face, pushing down firmly on each side.

Georgia, dancing in her black gown, on the evening they’d first met.

Agnes had always known what was best for Georgia. No doubt she was now doing the right thing, the best thing, once again.

Her legs kicked a little, feebly. Her arms raised as if to fight, but soon slumped back onto the bed. The laudanum was sedating her.

Georgia, exclaiming in delight over the silver and emerald comb he’d had made for her.
She was wearing it now, he saw. Its jewels glinted in the firelight.

But what was Agnes doing? Ending her suffering? The poor girl, wishing only that this phase of her life was over.

The kicks gave way to twitches, and still Agnes pressed down on the pillow.

Georgia, collapsing in agony as she suffered her first miscarriage.

He should stop her. He should cry out, rush across the room, snatch the pillow away. Why was he still standing at the door, his hand on the doorknob as though he was not quite in the room? He was not really there, not a part of this terrible scene at all. As long as he held onto the door handle none of it was real.

And now there was no movement at all, but still Agnes held down the pillow, and still he held onto the doorknob.

Georgia. Georgia. Georgia
. His wife. His beautiful, sweet, loving wife.

Agnes turned to look at him. Her face was expressionless. ‘Sir, I believe her suffering is over now.’

Over. It was all over. But it had all only just begun.

Feeling dazed he entered the room fully and closed the door quietly behind him. He crossed to the fireplace and added a couple of large logs to the fire, then lit a candle from a taper and placed it on a side table. He went to the window and pulled the curtains closed. It had been dark for some hours, and outside, it was raining softly.

There was something in the room that required his attention. But for the moment he did not quite want to turn his mind in that direction. He picked up the nightgown Agnes had been working on, and held it up.

‘A fine piece,’ he said. ‘Very fine.’ He folded it carefully and put it back onto Agnes’s chair.

Agnes was still holding the pillow, but now she had lifted it from Georgia’s face. Her lips were blue, and her skin was a deathly white. Agnes gently lifted her arms and folded them onto her chest, then pulled up the covers to her chin.

‘She looks at peace, sir.’

‘She does, yes. She sleeps in peace, yes.’

He rushed forward quickly as the blood drained from Agnes’s face and she slumped to the floor. He caught her, knelt and cradled her head on his lap.

‘Oh, my love, my love, wake up, come back to me,’ he moaned. ‘Georgia, my darling, my beloved wife, I’m here, wake up, please wake up!’

Agnes groaned and opened her eyes. She looked wildly around the room as if wondering where she was, and he saw in her eyes the memories of the last quarter hour come flooding back to her. She sat up, leaning into him still.

‘Oh my Lord, what have we done?’ she said, in a harsh whisper.

‘Ssh,’ he said, holding her, stroking her hair. ‘Ssh, don’t wake…’

‘She’ll not wake,’ said Agnes, her eyes wide. ‘She’ll never wake again! We’ve done for her!’

‘…the baby, I mean. Don’t wake him.’ He bent his head and kissed her gently, on the lips.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Do?’ He tried to kiss her again, but she pushed him away.

‘With
her
.’

He let go of Agnes and stood up, regarding his still, dead wife properly for the first time. The horror of what had happened finally struck him and he buried his face in his hands. What had they done? Agnes had done the deed, but he’d stood and watched, and had made no move to stop her. Oh, why had she done it? Why hadn’t he stopped her? He ran through the events in his mind since he’d tapped on the door of the room, working through a different sequence, a different outcome. He’d darted forward and snatched the pillow from Agnes, slapping her, then gathered a gasping Georgia in his arms and kissed her, vowing never to leave her side. He’d given a small shake of his head, not a nod, and Agnes had dropped the pillow at the foot of the bed, then come down to the drawing room with him, where they’d made love beside the fire. He’d tapped on the door and it had been opened by Georgia, out of bed and dressed, feeling oh so much better, and ready to come downstairs with him for the evening.

Agnes, still on the floor, clutched at his leg. ‘What are we to do?’ she asked again, her voice shocked and rasping.

He took his hands away from his face. The stark truth of Georgia’s corpse lay in front of him. A string of possibilities ran through his head, thoughts tumbling over each other. They would both leave the room, then Agnes would come back a little later, scream to find her mistress dead in her bed, passed away in her sleep. But why would a young woman like Georgia simply die like that? She’d been unwell but it was a sickness of the mind, not life threatening. They would say she must have taken too large a dose of the laudanum. But couldn’t doctors tell these days? They cut bodies open, and could tell whether too much laudanum had been drunk. He would get a knife and cut Georgia’s wrists, let her bleed over the bed, say she had taken her own life? And have the stigma of a wife’s suicide hang over him for the rest of his life? In any case, would a dead body bleed enough to make that look feasible?

As each possibility presented itself, he dismissed it. More and more he wanted things to be back the way they were. All he wanted was to live happily and quietly with an adored wife, producing a child every couple of years. But had things
ever
been like that? There had always been Agnes, since the day he’d met Georgia. He’d never fully devoted himself to Georgia. He realised he was wanting to return to something that had never been.

He glanced again at Georgia. What was he to do?

Chapter Eighteen: Hampshire, July 2013

‘Give it me, Thomas!’

‘No, I found it!’

‘I need to show it to Mum. Give it here!’

‘It’s mine. I’ll show it.’

‘Thomas, give it!’

I closed my secateurs and tucked them into a back pocket, then crossed the lawn to see what Lauren and Thomas were squabbling about.

‘Mum, he won’t give me the piece of cloth he found. But you’ll want to see it cos it looks like it came off the skeleton,’ said Lauren, indignantly.

‘It’s mine, I found it.’ Thomas stood in the middle of the flower bed where he’d been digging a trench for some radish seeds, with his feet planted wide, his chin jutted out and his hands clasped firmly behind his back.

‘It’s OK, Thomas. May I see what you found? Lauren, don’t snatch it from him.’

With a suspicious look at Lauren, Thomas held out his clenched fist and slowly uncurled his fingers. He was grasping a shred of grubby fabric. I took it carefully and examined it. It was clearly very old and rotten, almost disintegrating in my fingers.

‘Is it from the skeleton?’ Thomas asked.

‘Possibly,’ I replied. Simon and my Dad had filled the beech root hole with soil delivered from a nearby plant nursery, but the area had been so much disturbed and dug over it was possible that earth from around the skeleton had made its way to the surface. The forensic archaeologists who’d dug out the bones had mentioned finding some traces of fabric, perhaps a shroud or sheet that the woman had been buried in.

I peered closely at the scrap. It had probably been white or cream originally. There were a few lines of stitching running across it, tiny tucks of fabric neatly stitched. This was no bed sheet. It looked more like part of a garment. Perhaps a petticoat or nightdress.

‘This is a good find, Thomas,’ I said. ‘It might have belonged to your ghost. Do you want to keep it, or may I have it?’

‘You can have it,’ he said, generously. ‘But Lauren can’t have it.’

‘I don’t want it, it’s disgusting. Anyway, your radishes will never grow there. They need to be in full sunlight. Dad said.’ Lauren stuck her tongue out at Thomas and stalked off to join Lewis on the new trampoline.

‘Your radishes will be fine here,’ I said, noticing Thomas’s lip quivering. ‘In the morning the sun shines on this part of the garden. Come on, I’ll help you plant them.’ I tucked the scrap of fabric into my pocket. Maybe it had belonged to our mystery woman, maybe not.

Suddenly I remembered the silver and emerald hair comb I’d found in the study drawer just after we moved in. Could that have belonged to the mystery woman too? And what about the sealed-up loft – when was it sealed up? Could there be anything more up there belonging to her, or to any of my ancestors? Simon was away visiting his mother for the day. I resolved to ask him to work on opening up the loft when he got back.

A spot of rain landed on my nose, and then another, and another, and suddenly the heavens had opened.

‘Quick, inside!’ I yelled to the children, who were already running across the lawn. They charged for the kitchen door with me in hot pursuit, until I realised I had washing on the line. I did an about turn, grabbed the laundry basket and yanked everything off the line. By the time I was inside I was soaked, and so was the washing. I might as well not have bothered. Well there would be no more digging or any other gardening today.

‘Mum, can I make some biscuits?’ Lauren asked. ‘From my recipe book Granny gave me?’

‘Sure. You go ahead and start weighing everything out while I get changed,’ I told her. She was good in the kitchen. And hopefully Lewis would amuse Thomas for a while – I could already hear them debating whether to build a robot from Lego or K’Nex. I felt the urge to do a bit of research. I could have another go at looking for those servants after 1841.

Once I’d got some dry clothes on I took my laptop into the kitchen, and sat at one end of the table, giving Lauren strict instructions to keep her biscuit-making at the other end. Flour and laptops don’t mix well. She’d made these biscuits plenty of times before so only needed supervision rather than hands-on help. I was able to open up my research folders and start a bit of digging of a different kind.

Which is how we all were when Simon arrived home from visiting his mother. I was deep into following up leads on an ancestry website; Lauren had just put her cookies in the oven and had gone to watch TV while they baked, and Lewis was building a remote control K’Nex robot while Thomas ‘helped’. All happy, all productive in our own ways.

The peace was shattered the moment he walked through the door.

‘Hellish drive home in that downpour. Make us a cup a tea, love?’

‘Will do. Just a moment while I save this…’

‘Save what?’

‘Oh, some genealogy research I was doing…hold on, won’t take a second…’ I wanted to quickly type up the last few details on possible Agnes Cutter or Polly Turner matches I’d found, before I lost them.

‘Katie, for goodness sake! I’ve had a long day – had to deal with my mum who barely knows who
she
is any more, let alone who I am. The roads were a nightmare, there were three accidents on the M3 alone, and you can’t even be bothered to get up and make me a cup of tea. What is it – your dead ancestors are more important than me? Is that it? Well, thanks very much. I’ll make my own. You just sit there and commune with the dead.’

He stomped over to the kettle and snatched it from its stand to fill it, knocking a mug off the work surface in the process. It smashed on the tiled floor. Simon kicked a piece of it and it skidded across the kitchen towards me.

‘Simon, stop it! I’ve got bare feet – don’t spread the shards all over the place!’

‘I’ll clear it up. What’s for dinner? I had no lunch and I’m starving. Did you think to get anything ready, or have you just sat there all day doing pointless research?’

‘Why didn’t you have lunch?’

‘Because I was stuck in traffic and late getting to Mum’s, all right? Did you have any? Did you feed the kids or did they have to take a back seat to your research too?’

Good grief, he was really losing it now. This wasn’t like him at all. I knew he must have had a really bad day to blow his top like this, but even so, those jibes about ignoring the kids stung.

I grabbed a pair of gardening clogs from the kitchen door mat and put them on. ‘Simon, calm down. I’ve not been researching all day – just for the last hour after it started raining. And it’s not pointless. I might be able to work out who our skeleton was.’

‘Who needs to know? Who cares? The past is past, Katie. Dead and buried. Whether or not you find out who she was makes no difference – to you, me, the kids or anyone who’s actually
living
.’ He stuffed a tea bag into a mug and poured boiling water onto it, then flung the used tea bag into the sink. Great, I’d have to fish it out. Why couldn’t he put it straight into the bin?