Victorian Maiden (19 page)

 

The spa of Harrogate contained some eighty-eight distinct mineral springs, of which no two were exactly alike. No fewer than thirty-six of these springs were contained within the gardens of the Bogs Valley of Low Harrogate, the greatest concentration of such medicinal wells not only in England, or even in the Empire, but in the world.

Such an abundance of health-giving waters served to attract vast numbers of the sick, the infirm, and the elderly. It was said that anyone could be cured at Harrogate, just so long as they were wealthy enough, and it was to one of the large, opulent town houses overlooking the Bogs Valley Gardens that Atticus and Lucie Fox were bound.

The Price house was perhaps not quite as large or as stately as Sessrum House itself, but it was very comfortable nonetheless. They paused outside as Atticus took out his silver calling-card case and lifted out one of their thick, embossed cards. One of the corners had already been carefully folded over and the word, ‘affaires,' – matters – neatly written on the little white triangle it formed.

Lucie felt strangely exposed as they trod the short path up to the prettily-painted front door of the house, but then suddenly they were there, and Atticus had already rapped on the knocker.

The die was cast.

The ornate knocking-iron was cast in black iron in the shape of a snarling cat's head. It seemed to be silently challenging them as they listened for sounds of movement within. Then, the door-knob twisted and a young woman in a crisp maid's uniform appeared. She curtsied politely and said: “Good afternoon.”

Atticus smiled what he hoped was a warm and winning smile and politely raised his hat.

“Good afternoon. Perhaps you might be able to help us? We are Atticus and Lucie Fox, and we wish to leave our visiting card for Mrs Price.”

The maid took the card and curtsied once more as she showed them through the vestibule to a large, tiled hallway beyond.

“I'll see if Mrs Price is at home,” she said.

As the sound of the maid's footsteps faded, Atticus grimaced at Lucie.

“That sounds hopeful,” he whispered. “It would save us a lot of time if she sees us today.”

Lucie put her finger to her lips, like a school mistress before morning prayers. It was utterly vital that they spoke with Mrs Price. She was the last, in fact she was the only, firm link with little Sarah they had, and it would be ridiculous to offend her even before they began with a silly, thoughtless whisper.

Atticus mouthed, ‘Sorry,' and the maid returned. She was beaming.

“Mrs Price has asked that I show you into the drawing room,” she announced.

“She would be delighted to receive you.”

 

They are looking at her. They are staring at her. They are staring through her. Everyone is laughing at her. 

‘The poor little whore of a pauper girl has lost another of her bastards.' 

‘Why won't anyone help? Why don't they tell her where she is?'

She stops everyone. She grabs their clothes. She drops to her knees and pleads and pleads and pleads with them. 

“For the love of God, have you seen Baby Sarah? Tell me! Help me find her, please.”

But they turn away, shaking their heads as if she's some kind of madwoman. An old lady looks at her; her mouth moves, speaking words she cannot hear. But her eyes are hard; her eyes say she doesn't know, or won't tell, and Lizzie runs on.

“Sarah!” she screams, “Sarah!”

A man in a shabby waistcoat and battered bowler hat grins like a fiend. 

He moves and blocks her way. 

‘Lord Jesus, please don't let him hurt me, or if he must, please make him do it later, after I've found Sarah. Please, please don't make it now. Please don't let him stop me from finding my Sarah.' 

“I've lost my baby, sir. Please help me find my baby.” 

He grins again, and points to a ginnel. 

“Oh, thank you, thank you, sir.” 

She runs into the alley. 

“Sarah, it's me. It's your mama. I've come to fetch you. I've come to love you.” 

The silence presses on her ears. The walls seem to close in. The ginnel is empty, save for an upturned crate, a part-drunk bottle, and a clump of white-blanched nettles, clinging to life in the gloom. 

“Sarah, my darling, where are you?”

A shadow moves. The world surges past her and the hard, stone wall of the ginnel slams into her back. Through her shock, she sees a bowler hat and the grinning face of a fiend; a fiend with eyes full of cruelty. Something is gripping her arm, gripping it hard. She is dragged through a doorway and thrown to the floor. For an instant she feels relief that the floor is smooth and wooden and not more, hard stone. Something lashes across her face and she tastes blood. A hand clamps her mouth. Her body freezes but her mind shrieks and shrieks and shrieks. It screams a scream of terror and flees to that place where it seems as if it is all happening to a different little girl; a different little girl whose body is being mauled and pawed under the suffocating weight of a lust-crazed monster; a different little girl whose grogram gown is being dragged away from her, and a different little girl whose eyes are clenched tight shut, whose limbs are numb as lead as she begs the Lord Jesus and her dead mama to make him be finished with her.

And then he was. 

“Breathe a word o' this and upon my oath, I will kill thee. I can see what you're wearing; ye're a yellow-jacket slut from the workhouse, so I'll know just where to come looking for you.”

The gruff voice drags her back, shrieking again, from her safe and special place. She realises that what has happened hasn't happened to a different little girl at all. It has happened to her; to little Lizzie Wilson.

She lies there, not daring to move – not able to move – for an age, thinking about his words. Then she remembers her gown and her nakedness and she pushes its heavy, comforting weight back over her legs.

He knew how wicked and how sinful she really was. He'd had no learning, no schooling and he was as drunk as her aunt, yet even he knew as soon as he saw her that she was a dirty, fallen slut. He'd said so. He knew to push her into a ginnel and to… She struggled with the words for what he had done. Was it seduction? Was it punishment, or did he just hate nasty, little sluts like her with their yellow jackets and their black hearts?

He said that he'd kill her if she told anyone. The wonderful, wonderful promise carved into her mama's gravestone drifted into her mind: ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.'

‘Please, God, please send the man in the waistcoat back – please send him back to kill me. And please let Baby Sarah be dead too so that she doesn't ever have to fall and have men hate her and punish her and make her seduce them in dark ginnels. Please, please let her be dead.'

“Where have you been today, Wilson?” 

Mrs Dixon's waspish tones swept down the long workhouse corridor and stopped her heart.

“I asked you where you'd been,” she repeated an instant later, “And how in God's name have you come to be in that state?”

Elizabeth turned and the briefest expression of shock flitted over the Matron's face. 

“Please, Mrs Dixon, please, ma'am, I've been up to Harrogate. I've been looking for my little Baby Sarah.”

She curtsied and a fresh wave of pain stabbed her below her belly.

“And who gave permission for you to be up in Harrogate?” the Matron demanded.

Elizabeth curtsied and grimaced once more. 

“No one, Mrs Dixon,” she whispered, “But I had to find my Sarah. I truly did, ma'am. She'll be crying for me. She'll be frightened. She needs her mama to look after her and to rock her and to sing her to sleep.”

“But I've already told you, Wilson; your daughter is with a fine, new family. Why don't you understand? She will have a proper nursery to sleep in now and not a workhouse ward. You must forget about her because by now, she will surely have forgotten all about you.”

“No, she can't have…”

“She will, Wilson. She has a new mama now. One who can care for her properly and one who isn't a yellow-jacket inmate in a poor-law workhouse. Now, more importantly, you have broken a thousand rules today in absconding from the workhouse without permission from an officer, and what's more, you've done none of your work.”

“Please, Mrs Dixon, I was only looking for Sarah.”

“Don't take me for a fool, Wilson. Your clothes are dishevelled, you have dirt on your back, and you have a clear hand-print upon your bosom. It's plain what you were in Harrogate for, and it's abominable.”

“But, Mrs Dixon…”

“You're a slut, and if another brat results from this day's escapade, I'm not sure that the people of this parish should be made to pay for it. I thought your mother might have brought you up better than this, Wilson. I'm sure she wasn't a slut. Or was she? You will spend the night in the refractory cell with the hope that in there, you will have plenty of time to think, and to reflect upon your actions today, and to beg God for forgiveness.”

“No, please, ma'am, please not that. Don't make me be on my own. I'll do anything you want. I promise never to go out again. Please, Mrs Dixon!”

The door slammed shut behind her and cut off all the light; all, that was, except for a thin, bright strip above the flagstones of the floor. The bleak, whitewashed walls of the tiny refractory cell reflected just enough of this meagre light for Elizabeth to make out a low, brick bench covered by a blanket and next to it, a slop pail. The air was thick with the acrid, gagging odour of sweat and stale urine.

What light there was would soon be gone, and then there would be only silence and blackness and the horrors of her thoughts. Panic exploded within her. It was panic that would not be stilled however hard she rocked and however loudly she sang, ‘Hush-a-bye-Baby.' She needed to hurt herself. She needed a different hurt to the terrible hurt in her mind, which would drive her this night to the edge of insanity and perhaps beyond. She needed a different hurt; one she could feel, one she could control and one she could think about with all her might. She might just be able to get through the night then; she might just be able to get through to the morning if she didn't need to remember the terrible, terrible things. 

And then she looked at the pail again and she sobbed in relief. The jagged, iron edge of the rim was so sharp, and her skin was so soft.

 

Mrs Anne Price was already in her drawing room, cocooned under a rug in a large, comfortable-looking tub chair, when the maid showed Atticus and Lucie through. Behind her an empty wicker bath chair stood under a large portrait of a smiling, be-whiskered gentleman. It was the very same man who leered down from the photograph into the Annexe at Sessrum House.

“Mr and Mrs Fox, please forgive me for not coming straight out to greet you, but as you can see, I am an invalid. I need a bath chair to get about, and that is rather inconvenient inside the house.”

Mrs Price's reedy voice plucked their attention from the portrait.

“Mrs Price, there is no need to apologise. We are very grateful indeed that you have received us today.”

Atticus felt curiously insincere in his cordiality under the watchful eyes of the monster on the wall.

Mrs Price smiled warmly.

“Not at all, not at all; I'm very honoured to be meeting Harrogate's very own Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, and most especially so as you are real people and not just some ink-and-paper creations.”

She chuckled infectiously and smoothed out the rug across her skinny lap.

“I'm leaving to visit my daughter and my young grandchildren in Northumberland tomorrow, so I wouldn't otherwise have been able to see you until my return. That might have been several weeks from today, so your timing is fortuitous. Now, I believe you have…
matters
that you wish to discuss with me?”

The maid entered the room, and Atticus and Lucie smiled and waited patiently as she poured the tea. The smiling and the waiting had become almost unbearable by the time the maid finally curtsied and left and Atticus was able to say: “We do indeed have very important matters to discuss, Mrs Price.”

“Is it a murder investigation?” Mrs Price asked conspiratorially, her intelligent eyes twinkling with excitement.

Atticus was completely wrong-footed: ‘She must know about the baby farmer,' he thought incredulously, ‘And she's laughing about it.'

He glanced up at the portrait and her dead husband suddenly seemed to be laughing too.

Lucie filled the awkward vacuum of his silence.

“I'm afraid that these particular matters are no more exciting than the simple tracing of a missing person, Mrs Price, but no less important for that. We are trying to trace a missing child who by now will be a grown woman.”

Atticus relaxed as Mrs Price's face dropped in disappointment.

“Not a murder?”

Lucie shook her head and smiled apologetically.

“We are only commissioned investigators; we rarely get involved with anything so glamorous as a murder.”

“I see. Well, never mind; how can I help you both?”

“I believe that your late husband was one of the overseers of the Starbeck workhouse before it was replaced by the present one in Knaresborough?” Lucie ventured.

The old lady looked intrigued now.