NaGeira (9 page)

I could not begin to decipher the sorrow on my mother’s face that day in Mr. Jarvis’s office. Was it pity for the sufferings I would undergo in jail? I turned this question over and over in my head in the days that followed, as if it were a die with no markings. Always the same question rebounded in place of an answer: Why then would she have put me there?

Other unpalatable solutions emerged, but I found ways to bend my mind to some urgent and distracting task to avoid taking them in. I still do the same, even though I have the answer. The solution is like a monster whose contours were revealed by an unwelcome dawn. It is no less fearful, but I know its shape and the size of its fangs. I know what it is now that I work so hard not to think about. Today, however, the panic for Sara is forcing the issue upon me with unusual persistence. I relive the moment when my mother raised her hands to my face, then dropped them to her sides, tilting her head. I remember how she gazed at me with tear-filled eyes. I cannot deny there was accusation as well as sorrow in her expression, and that the two emotions were entwined as one. I have forced her
to abandon me, her wet eyes seem to tell me. It is her predicament, not mine, that grieves her.

There’s a knock on my cabin door. My heart hardens like stone.

“Yes?” My response is scarcely audible, even to myself.

The door opens slowly and I rise swiftly from my chair. Like a fox’s terror as it flies from the hounds, my fear has given me an ease of movement I have not possessed for some while.

Elizabeth Rose slips in quickly and shuts the door after her.

“Have you heard the news?” she asks, her large eyes startled and blinking.

She’s been found, I think. Her body has washed up on the settlement’s shore.

My mouth tries to move, but I say nothing.

“It’s my Sara. She’s gone!”

“Gone,” I reply hoarsely. And I marvel at the way the situation has conspired to disguise my guilt. Yes, I’m trembling, but such reaction is in keeping with the intelligence I have just received.

Elizabeth takes another step towards me.

“She’s been missing since early this morning. No one knows where she is.”

I find myself backing off towards my bed. Elizabeth makes for the chair I have left and sits on its side, facing me. I lower myself onto the straw mattress.

“It’s my punishment,” she says, gripping one hand in the other. “I know it.”

“Punishment for what?” I manage to say.

“I told you I was three times cursed by my daughters,” she says and leans forward as though in pain. “I tried to interfere with fate and change the child inside me, and now Sara is stolen away.”

My body begins to calm. The woman before me is like one bound in rope. Anxiety and guilt coil around her spirit, and she cannot see beyond them to notice the suspicious behaviour of another.

“I have sinned against nature and against God,” she continues, “and this is my punishment.”

“But it is not yet dusk,” I say, my voice steady. “She will turn up.”

“No,” she sighs, staring at the floor. “She is gone. I can feel it. Something happened when I tried to interfere with the course fate has laid out for me. And it may be more than that.”

She is motionless for some while. I find myself tensing again, wondering if she knows more than she is saying about Sara and David.

“What do you mean?” I ask softly.

“There is a general curse on us,” she murmurs. “All of the Roses. Simon’s mother also struggled for years to provide an heir. In trying to break the curse now, I have sinned against nature.”

“That makes no sense. The curse was already broken with Simon.”

She looks up at me slowly.

“Not really,” she says. “Simon did not come to his family in the usual way.”

“You said that to me last time; I didn’t understand it then.”

“I can say no more. We never talk about it, and my husband trusts you least of all the people in the settlement.”

She does not mean to be cruel, I know, and her voice is without passion of any kind. I find myself drawn to the question again.

“Why does he trust me so little? We have never met.”

Elizabeth shakes her head slowly. “Something his father used
to tell him, I think. He was warned never to speak to you.” She looks up at me again with a wan, sickly smile. “He is still afraid to this day.”

The idea is grotesque. A child throwing dust in the eyes of a stranger needs little explanation. A child’s mind is full of monsters and shadows. But a man carrying those infant terrors through forty years of life is beyond all reason. And why would John Rose tell his son such a thing? Even though he seemed aloof and distant, he had helped me settle near the community and thought about my needs. Why would he give with one hand and take away with another?

“Tell me true, Sheila,” Elizabeth says, her eyes suddenly bright with anxiety. “Did my Sara ever come to see you?”

Suddenly I am bound at the stake. I can feel my scrawny arms pinioned by the question as though it were a restraining leash.

“No, never.” The words spill out before any decision is made. I had no choice. Hesitation would defeat me as surely as a bad answer. My ears buzz and I watch her reaction. She looks to the floor again and sighs.

Have I just built my own funeral pyre? Any stray spark might now ignite the ground upon which I stand. If Sara told one of her sisters about last night’s visit, if someone saw her enter my cabin, the dry wood beneath me will burst into flame. I will be exposed as a liar and such a lie, with Sara gone, would be lethal.

“What about the boy, David Butt?” she asks while I am still numb from shock. “His Uncle Seth cannot find him today either.”

“David?” I say slowly.
Don’t lie!
I tell myself.
Don’t lie this time! Emma and Mary Rose know he has been seeing you!
“Yes, David comes to see me often. He brings me firewood.”

“Sheila, you must tell me, did David ever ask you about my Sara? Did he ever show any interest in potions or love philtres?”

Again I must speak before thinking. “Yes, David was in love with your Sara. He asked me about it often and I played along to humour him.” I can’t believe I sound so calm while my chest is hammering so hard. “But I do not practice physic on children.”

Elizabeth looks at me and nods.

“I don’t know how this will end,” she mumbles. “Simon is beside himself.”

She rises from the chair and turns to the door.

I know I should tell her not to worry, that Sara will turn up, but the words cannot form on my dry lips. I watch her go to the door, knowing I am not cruel enough to give hope I know to be false.

She opens the door and turns to me.

“I know she is gone,” she says, her eyes tired and blinking. “A mother knows.” She disappears and closes the door after her.

———

The barred window looked out onto a narrow, empty courtyard, not the same one through which the carriage had entered, but a tiny irregular space. There was no entrance or exit; it looked like the bottom of a hastily dug well. My cell was at least one storey from the ground and the window was so small I had to push my forehead close to see anything above, below or on either side of a patch of grey stone wall opposite. Gusts of wind spiralled in the little trough, taking specks of dust and dry straw in a zigzagging ride, then died and let them fall. The heavy door behind me was oak inlaid with iron. When it closed, it made a noise like thunder.

Despite all clear evidence to the contrary, my chest heaved with the urgent belief I could escape. So great was my determination, and so young my spirit, I did not stop to ponder the many differences between reality and desire. I went to the door and banged against it. The wood was so thick it made almost no noise, though my knuckles became raw very quickly. Still, I was undeterred. I went to the window and hauled at one of the iron bars in an attempt to dislodge its base from the stone. I gritted my teeth and strained my sinews, but nothing at all happened. I felt like a flea trying to shift the walls of a cathedral.

I was still certain that there were a hundred opportunities for escape yet to make themselves obvious to me. Like an acrobat warming up for a performance, my mind was working through these possibilities, when a heavy
clunk
came from the door. I backed away to the bed as it began to open. In came a plump, pale-faced woman with a grimy white cloth wrapped many times around her head. She carried a tray and smiled at me as she placed it on a low table by the bed. I was amazed that she had left the door open behind her and thought this must be an oversight. But a tall jailor with a dirt-encrusted face stood in the corridor watching me with blank and unperturbed eyes. At first glance I thought that, like the woman, he was old. Decay and age hung around everything. But beyond the grime his face seemed unwrinkled; he was perhaps no more than twenty. A ring with a set of keys hung from his belt.

“You’re the new girl, aren’t you?” the woman said in a not unfriendly manner. She rubbed her hands together and looked down at the tray. “There’s bread, mutton scraps, milk, and water. It’s not so bad. You’ll be well looked after here.” The guard in the corridor sniffed, but his expression didn’t change. “This is the best
part of Newgate,” the woman continued, “the master’s side, and your people have left an allowance for your food and comfort.” She pulled a joint-stool close to the low table and beckoned for me to approach.

I could see she was trying to bestow comfort, but there was an alien whiff about her that was intolerable. It carried hints of brick dust, rotten food, and human waste long dried to powder. The same curious smell wafted in from the corridor and the sallow-faced young guard. This stench seemed the very essence of captivity; my pulse raced in opposition to it. I resented the woman’s attempts to be pleasant. I did not intend to stay, and the idea that I might need her reassurances was repulsive to me.

The woman smiled again, preparing to leave. Suddenly I could bear it no longer. The door was open and I was destined to go through it as surely as a ferret is destined for a rabbit hole. I made no decision but simply took flight, dodging past the woman and leaping through the open doorway while ducking under the guard’s arm. The corridor gained in a single shimmy, I bounded through its narrow walls towards one end where crisp beams of sunlight seemed to promise an opening.

“Gilbert! Quick!” I heard the woman shout.

The guard’s heavy footfalls were close behind, so I didn’t dare to slow down, even though one of my sandal straps broke, the whole shoe flying away from my sole and flapping against my ankle with each bound. The light ahead of me that had promised escape revealed itself now as merely a barred window gaping into the sun. I swayed one way, then another, in case the guard made a grab, then scambled around the corner from this false mirage, pushing myself off against the stone wall.

I chased down a corridor much narrower than the one through which I had just run. The guard shouted something I didn’t catch, but there was desperation in his voice. I felt that either I must be leaving him behind or I must be coming very close to an egress through which I could make my escape. Taking another corner, I jolted to a stop. This was another long corridor along which stood three guards some twenty yards apart, each with his back to an archway. These must be either cells or new passageways, I thought. Or perhaps one was an exit to the street. If I knew which one led to freedom, I felt sure I could wrestle any guard to the ground. My heart thumped with the ferocity of a young lioness and my fists clenched with the bare-knuckled fury of the cruelest barbarian living beyond the Pale. The nearest of the guards turned to me with mild amusement and smirked. Uncertainty gripped me as the footsteps behind me got louder. There was a recess immediately to my right and within I could see the beginnings of a descending staircase.

I scrambled for this opening, leaping down several steps at a time. Uncouth laughter echoed in my ears from above as I went deeper, the staircase winding one, two, three complete circles into the darkness, though flickering wall lanterns gave me just enough light to judge each landing. It became warmer and an indescribable stench rose from somewhere below. Still I leapt three and four steps at a time, certain I had outfoxed the stupid-looking guards, certain also that there would be some escape from these depths to the outside world. The stone became chilly and slightly damp on my one bare sole, even while the air around me grew hotter. Suddenly my bare foot slipped, scooping me at high speed into the air. My hips crashed hard upon a jagged step-ridge. I cried out, fearing my back
was broken. Before I had even a chance to gauge the level of pain, a pair of enormous hands grabbed my shoulders and hauled me to my feet.

“You fool!” spat the young guard. I could smell him at close quarters and had to close my eyes from this as much as from the pain. “Do you want to be sent to limbo?”

I could hear other footsteps rattling down the staircase after us and we were washed in an undulating golden light. “What happened?” said the woman who had served me. She had taken one of the lanterns from the wall and now held it close as she peered at us. “Did she fall?”

“We’ll have to tell the governor now,” murmured the guard in reply. “She’s been seen by the guards upstairs, as well as here.” He kept his hands on my shoulders and looked down into the dungeon space below us. Still trembling with pain, I followed his gaze.

The first thing I saw was a rat perched upon the side of a ridge two steps below. It nodded its head once or twice to get the measure of the distance it meant to jump. Raising its haunches and sliding its pink hands down the wall, it plunged, landing with a little thud on a bed of straw, dark soil, and rags. But the rags moved suddenly and the shifting became general, every inch of ground in movement. Rats scurried along this surface but the ground itself heaved, gasped, and moaned to the accompaniment of grinding iron.

The pain in my back was entirely gone, replaced by something else—a rebellion of senses. The floor was made up of people. Every bit of it was limb, neck, torso. A hundred dull eyes caught the flame. They either gazed with indifference or looked away in some fever or mute entreaty. This was the source of the stench which hovered around the guard and the serving woman. Just as a demon
is supposed to smoke with sulphurous fumes, so the people here were infected with this scent of the damned.