The Butchered Man Read online

  “Now, you shouldn’t talk like that,” said Felix.

  “Why not?” she said, rolling her head towards him and fixing her large eyes on him. “Tell me that, Mr Saw Bones?”

  He took her hand in both his.

  “Because, it doesn’t do you any good. Not if you are going to get better – and I would esteem it a great favour if you were to get better.”

  She seemed to play with the idea of a smile for a moment, but then looked tired and defeated again, closing her eyes to him.

  “I suppose so...” she said.

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it,” he said. He began to let go of her hand but she gripped at his. Then she opened her eyes again and looked at him with the large dark eyes that made a great beauty of her, even though she was wrecked by her condition and her surrounding, despite her tangled, matted hair and grey complexion. In his mind’s eye he saw her dressed up and sitting in the sunshine somewhere, perhaps on the banks of a burn, with flowers in her lap, flowers that he had found for her round about. She would be laughing at him for it, in the way that it is very pleasant for a young man to be laughed at by a girl.

  He was shocked at the power such a vision had on him. It was more than inappropriate given the circumstances, but he could not could bring himself to disentangle his hand from hers. He reached out and pushed the hair from her face.

  “Abigail,” he said, after a long moment, “there is something I must ask you. Eliza told me something and I must know if it is true. When Mrs Fulwood discovered you were with child did she give you anything – or do anything to you to bring an end to it?”

  “Oh, why do you have to ask me that?”

  “I’m sorry, I have to.”

  “What if they did?”

  “It was wrong of them.”

  “It happens all the time,” she said.

  “Here?” Felix said.

  “No, no, everywhere. It’s not so bad. Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do.”

  “Did you ask for them for something?”

  “No,” she said. “No, I didn’t. But you don’t ask for things here. Don’t you get that?”

  “Mrs Fulwood told me that you weren’t supposed to come here if you were pregnant.”

  “I wasn’t pregnant when I got here,” she said.

  “Then who was it? Who was the father?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

  “You don’t have to protect him. He shouldn’t have abandoned you...”

  “I wasn’t bleedin’ abandoned,” she said, sharply. “I knew what I was doing. I was getting myself some money together, all right? So I could get out of here.”

  Felix knew he should not have been surprised at such a revelation, but it drew him up sharp. He had not realised to what degree he had given into sentiment. After all, this was why she was here; she had sold her body before, and what was to stop her doing it again given half the chance?

  “I told you I wasn’t a good girl,” she said.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” he said, after a moment

  “She made me drink some strange tea. I think that’s what did it.”

  “You don’t know what was in the tea?”

  “No, course not. She just gave it to me. Made me drink it. I was being sick all the time – couldn’t do my work. She said it would put me right again.”

  “It could have killed you!” Felix exclaimed.

  “Having a baby could have killed me too,” she said. “And even if it hadn’t, what was I going to do with a little bastard?”

  Felix bit his lip. To that he had no answer.

  ***

  At The Unicorn there was a parcel from his mother waiting for him. It contained half a dozen new linen shirts, and an extraordinary looking dressing-gown that she had constructed out of tiny diamonds of scrap stuff, in every imaginable colour. It was a bravura piece of sewing, and it would no doubt be serviceable and warm, but Felix was not entirely sure he liked the look of it, and felt self-conscious when Major Vernon came in as he was trying it on.

  “It makes me think too much of a Harlequin,” he said.

  “You should be glad of it,” Vernon said, as Felix hurried to take it off. Vernon took it from him like a valet, and examined it with appreciation. “Your mother is a fine needlewoman. It’s a great many years since anyone in my family made so much as a shirt for me. You were over at Brinklow?”

  “Yes, sir. She’s much improved.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m not sure. I’m beginning to think the situation there was entirely preventable.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “That the miscarriage – it was possibly not spontaneous. Well, more than possibly.”

  “Surely not?” said Vernon.

  “I think my patient was given something – I’m not sure what precisely. One of the girls told me this – and then Abigail confirmed it. She said that Mrs Fulwood, the matron, made her drink some strange tea.”

  “I see,” said Vernon.

  “This sort of thing is not at all uncommon. An infusion of pennyroyal, for example – it’s a popular trick. Extremely dangerous but popular. Now, Mrs Fulwood told me that they had not discovered Abigail was pregnant until she was three months gone. The child would have quickened. She would had to have taken a dose of something very toxic to bring on contractions at that stage. Up until then it seems the pregnancy was proceeding normally. She’d had a great deal of nausea – that’s often a very good sign that a birth will go to full term. And of course,” Felix went on, “given how severe her symptoms were – and I should have thought of this before – the increased bleeding, the fever, and the way the afterbirth was so imperfectly expelled – well, it does point to a provoked abortion, even without her telling me she had taken something and the other girl’s evidence.”

  “That’s a serious accusation.”

  “I know. What should I do?”

  “I don’t think you need to do anything at this point,” said Vernon. “I will speak to Miss Hilliard about it though. I cannot believe that she would be aware that this could be happening.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Felix said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, she is quite imperious, don’t you think? The girls are all terrified of her.”

  “She may be firm with them, but they have led disorderly lives. They need that kind of discipline. It is good for them. But I cannot believe for a moment she would condone a criminal act, Mr Carswell. I think she is a remarkable woman and has achieved a great deal. She will be shocked to hear this. I hope for her sake it proves not to be true. It will distress her.”

  Felix glanced at the Major, rather startled by the note of admiration underpinning this speech.

  “She will have to bear it, I think,” he said. “The facts point to it quite decidedly. I would like to have this out with that Fulwood woman. I dare say she has the whole bag of tricks up her sleeve.”

  “I will speak to Miss Hilliard first and then we will decide what is to be done. But for now the girl is recovering – and you should remember it was Miss Hilliard who sent for you to attend on her in the first place.”

  Felix did not answer. He knew that this was the moment that he should tell Major Vernon how she had turned him away. But his pride was not ready to admit that and neither was he ready for the lecture he was sure that he would get for his honesty. Something instinctively told him that the Major’s displeasure was to be avoided. If Major Vernon went to Brinklow and got to the bottom of the situation, as he surely would, he would perhaps overlook the impropriety when he saw the reason for it. He would see that Felix had had no choice but to return, even though Miss Hilliard had forbidden him to do so.

  “You must speak to Abigail as well, sir,” Felix said instead. “And to the girl Eliza. She is frightened. You need to get her alone. She will never speak plainly in front of Miss Hilliard.”

  “Are we speaking of the same person, Mr Carsw
ell?” said Major Vernon.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As Giles rode out to Brinklow, the question that Carswell had not answered lingered with him.

  Miss Hilliard received him in her office, where she sat with her account book. As previously she was immaculately dressed in clothes that in their elegant simplicity perfectly suited her situation. There was a bright fire in the grate, and two chairs set companionably on either side.

  As he came in, and she greeted him very pleasantly, he indulged the fantasy of having a room like this with a charming woman in it, as a place of retreat.

  “Won’t you sit down?” she said, indicating the chair by the fire. “You look a little tired, Major Vernon – I trust you don’t mind me saying that?”

  “No, as matter of fact I am,” he said, thinking of Miss Cley and then Sophie Pritchard.

  “This case must be quite disturbing for you,” she said, ringing the bell. “Will you take some tea?”

  “I should like that very much,” he said, and took the offered chair. He half expected her to fetch him a pair of slippers, and that would not have been the least bit unpleasant. Instead she sat down opposite him, and took up a piece of plain sewing from the basket nearby. Her chair was slightly lower than his which gave him a charming view of the top of her head with its neat braids, and of her careful hands spreading out the piece of white linen over her black skirts. It was a domestic gesture entirely, but it filled him with feelings that were inappropriate. He would have liked to have those hands make a shirt for him, if only for the thought of their lingering caress, transferred by some magic from the shirt to his own naked skin.

  “I hope you don’t mind me calling like this,” he said, suddenly self-conscious.

  “Not at all.”

  “I feel I am breaching your citadel. And interrupting your work.”

  “I am sure you have a good reason for coming,” she said, lifting her dark eyes to him for a moment. “Is it about Mr Rhodes?”

  “No,” he said. The subject was so disagreeable he did not want to raise it at once. But Carswell had made a good case and answered it would have to be. Yet he still hesitated. “I see you are fond of snowdrops,” he said, gesturing towards the tumbler of flowers on the table. “Are those doubles?”

  “I think so. I don’t know much about plants. I found these growing outside but I have no idea how they got there. Mrs Lepaige sometimes does things in the gardens here – perhaps she planted them. She is a great helper.”

  “She is?”

  “Oh, yes. Very much so. She has so much time for us all.”

  “That’s very commendable, given her domestic difficulties.”

  “You know about that? Poor creature.”

  “I was speaking with her this morning. There was an impudent fellow sitting on the doorstep, demanding his money.”

  “I am sure you saw him off,” she said, with a slight smile. “She will be grateful.”

  “It strikes me that Sir Oswald did a cruel thing turning over the living to Mr Rhodes.”

  “Perhaps he will reconsider Mr Lepaige now,” she said, snapping her thread. “We must pray that he is wise.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Ah, here is the tea. Thank you, Betty.”

  It was the girl to whom Giles had spoken the other morning, and with the same quiet grace she set the tea tray down in front of her mistress, and then left.

  “She’s a credit to you,” he said.

  “Now, you will try this, won’t you? It’s a pepper cake. It’s an old family recipe of mine. I don’t like to boast, but I think it is very delicious.”

  She offered the plate and he took a slice. It was a solid, highly spiced gingerbread and very pleasant.

  “Now, where is your family from?” he said. “This reminds me of a cake our cook used to make for us in Northumberland. She was from Penrith.”

  “Well, my family had property in Westmorland.”

  “Westmorland, of course,” Giles said with a smile. “Then we are neighbours of sorts.”

  “Not any more,” she said. “The property has gone out of my family. My father was a most unlucky man, both with his health and with his money. He died when I was five and there was barely enough for my mother and I to live on. But we were taken in by a very kind relation of my mother – the Countess of Railby – which is how I am here today.”

  “And you are happy with this life?” he asked. “If I might ask?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You never thought of marriage?” he said.

  Surely such a handsome woman, so self-evidently virtuous, would not have been short of offers, but perhaps her poverty had ruled against it. He wondered if Stephen Rhodes had been indifferent to her and how they had remained such strangers when he clearly had such a predilection for women. But then, unlike Sophie Pritchard and Miss Cley, Miss Hilliard was not a young woman. She was not unformed and, no doubt, not easily influenced. Rhodes would not have liked that. What Giles Vernon found admirable would no doubt repel another man. Carswell had clearly seen nothing to admire in her.

  As Giles sipped his tea, which was excellently made, he found himself thinking: if I were in a position to take a wife and make myself comfortable, this is the sort of woman I would choose. And it would have been more than comfort. There would be passion in marriage to such a woman. He sensed there was fire and steel there as well, and it fascinated him. That he could not deny.

  “Of course,” she said. “But I have never been in a position to make a good match. This is my marriage.” This was something of a radical statement, but she said it with such calmness that he could not be offended by it. She continued: “I am a great deal more fortunate than many women in my position. I have my own establishment and a great deal more freedom. And I feel my duty and usefulness here is equal to that of a wife and mother. I feel no sense of loss, if that is what you mean?”

  “I suppose I did. I find it very interesting that you are so contented. It is admirable.”

  “Are you married, may I ask?” she asked. It was inevitable and hardly surprising that she should ask this, especially when he had asked such confidences of her, but it still unsettled him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am.”

  “I should like to meet Mrs Vernon,” she said.

  “I’m afraid that would not be possible – she is an invalid,” Giles said. “She does not go out at all.”

  “Oh, I am sorry to hear it,” she said. “How hard for you both that must be.”

  “We manage,” he said, but he did not sound as careless as he wished. He found her eyes resting on him and he felt he was being delicately filleted by her.

  “Her condition...” she said. “It is a chronic one?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  He got up from his seat and went to the window, thoroughly uncomfortable now with her scrutiny.

  “I am sure you are an excellent nurse,” she said.

  “I am not,” he said. “Her needs are far beyond anything I can usefully supply and she is looked after by strangers. That is the worst of it. Her mind...” He broke off. He had said too much already.

  “Oh, I see,” he heard her say. “That is the most cruel thing of all.”

  He turned and looked at her. She sat there, her sewing on her lap, but she had abandoned her needle. Instead she was looking over at him, in that same, disconcerting, clear-eyed way, which made him think dangerous and troubling thoughts. Of all the women he had met over the years, she was the most inappropriate candidate to be a mistress, but his reason seemed unwilling to operate. He could think only of cupping her chin in his hand and pressing his lips to hers, tasting her. That gaze of hers, that mixture of tender sympathy and transparent interest, seemed to pull him to the brink of hell.

  He looked away quickly, at the steel engraving of a vastly idealized cottage home that hung above the mantle, and brought his feelings back under proper governance. He had come there on business, he reminded himself, and on so un
pleasant a matter that it would soon puncture this peculiar and dangerous atmosphere.

  “I have a disagreeable subject to raise with you, ma’am,” he said. “Mr Carswell has told me something about the young girl who lost her child. He is of the opinion that the abortion did not occur spontaneously and that it was provoked by artificial means.”

  “Goodness, how very strange,” she said.

  “Now, of course this is not something that you would condone, but it may be that one of your staff, or perhaps one of the girls might have contrived this, without your knowledge.”

  “Has he definite proof of this?

  “No, I do not think so. But it was his observation, and I cannot take it lightly.”

  “So from what does he derive this opinion – and it is no more than an opinion, I think?”

  “He said that the girl himself told him that she had been given something and that another girl mentioned it.”

  “I see,” she said, rising from her place. “He is a very young man, of course. Rather hot-headed and foolish, perhaps, for all his expertise. I suspect he has been sold a pretty tale. Honesty is not habitual with these girls, and faced with a sympathetic and handsome young man they will not hesitate to embroider the truth. The girl at the heart of this, Abigail Prior, had already lied to us about her condition. She concealed her pregnancy from us – we took her in on the strength of her word, and then we discovered she was lying.”

  “You only discovered she was pregnant when she began to miscarry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr Carswell did augment his remarks with his medical observations. It was his opinion that the complications the girl experienced might have been caused by the abortificient.”

  “Might have?” she said, her steely, bright eyes on him. He conceded with a nod. “I think that most unlikely,” she said after a moment.