Part Three
Dark. A dank smell.
I open my eyes. Fog, in my head, in front of my eyes. I blink to clear them.
Dark still.
I listen, my ears straining for clues.
Silence.
Silence and cold.
Such cold.
My thoughts come slowly. I tell myself to move, curl up, wrap myself in my arms.
I can't. My wrists, ankles are fastened down. I can't move.
And now I hear it. Rustling. My mouth dries. A mouse? A rat? I'm not afraid of mice, but rats? In the dark, when I can't see where they are? When I can't move and they can? When they can run over me and bite me with their sharp yellow teeth? I try to shout Help! But only a feeble croak comes out.
No one answers.
The rustle continues but there aren't tiny feet running over me, or teeth gnawing at me. Relax. Breathe. Tell yourself, it isn't a mouse, it isn't a rat.
Breathe.
Drip.
My mouth's dry and I can't swallow.
Drip.
Somewhere moisture's gathering and falling, but I can't reach it.
What am I doing here?
My mind is a pocket with a hole in the bottom—everything I used to know has fallen out.
I struggle to concentrate. And then I remember ... Weeks ... the window breaking ... the cloth.
They've tied me down in the dark because I attacked Weeks.
I remember everything—how it was all going so well, until Beatrice's locked door—and Weeks. How did she come to be there just then? Only Beatrice and I knew what I was planning. Someone must have overheard me. Alice passing in the hall? Someone must have told Weeks and she waited for me. But before that, what did she do?
Beatrice, what has she done to you?
Grey now. A faint light.
I'm more awake. Slowly I look round. A narrow room like a cell. Walls streaked with grime. A grating high up near the ceiling. In the door, about a third of the way down, a dark hole, like an eye.
I'm stiff with cold. Now I can see why. I'm lying on a mattress which crackles as if it's stuffed with straw, but there are no bed covers—all I'm wearing is a grubby gown. They've taken everything—all my clothes, even my underwear. They must have taken my hairpins too—my hair's straggling round my face.
I go to turn over, but I can't. Then I see the metal bolts in the floor, the canvas straps fastening my wrists and ankles. I try to pull loose, clench my fists, and there's a searing pain in my right palm. I remember now—the sliver of glass I clutched at as Weeks held me down on the floor. But I can't reach the strap with it. I tug hard, hoping to loosen the bindings, but it's no good.
My heart flutters, panic rising. To keep it at bay, I look round again. There must be something here, something that will help me. But there's nothing else in the room, except a chamber pot in the corner, a chamber pot I can't reach, and even as I think this, I'm aware of the pressure in my bladder. I grit my teeth.
Hang on. Surely someone will come. Hang on.
I try to think about something else, anything ... and then its hits me. Today, now, I would have been free, waiting to fetch Beatrice in a carriage, looking forward to our arrival at Carr Head, Aunt Phyllis's welcome...
Stop it, I tell myself, blinking back my tears. At least you're alive. My heart contracts. Please let Beatrice be safe somewhere, even if she thinks I've let her down...
With a grating sound, the door opens and I squint at the light spilling in from the corridor outside, at the two women who fill the doorway.
One of them addresses me in a loud voice, as if I'm deaf. "Well, my lady, got yerself into a fine pickle, ain't yer? This'll teach you to attack the folks what look after you. There's gratitude. Mind, you, Sal," she nudges her companion, "I'd 'ave liked to see it."
Sal, who is tall with a long face like a horse's, chuckles like a simpleton. "They say Weeks 'as got a real shiner."
Her partner purses her lips. "Serves 'er Ladyship right, I say. Now then, you, time for breakfast."
They advance into the room and Sal deposits a tin mug and plate on the floor some distance away from me, all the while observing me warily.
"Untie 'er, Sal," says the shorter one.
The other hesitates. "I don't want a punch or a kick, Hannah."
"I won't," I manage to croak.
"Damn right, you won't. For if you do, you'll feel my fist quick enough. Go on, Sal, 'urry up." Hannah looms over me with her fist clenched, while Sal fumbles with the fastenings.
I try to sit up, but my head swims and I fall back on to the mattress, with a groan.
Hannah gives me a shove in the ribs with her boot. "Come on, we ain't got all day. Use the piss-pot if yer going to."
I haul myself up again and, keeping my hand closed tight on the piece of glass, totter across to the chamber pot on legs that feel like rubber.