His face was still marked with the shock of what he had found down the well; I was surprised how deeply it had affected him. But then, of course, he too had once been a beggar boy.
Joseph was waiting outside the gaol. He looked tired and unshaven, his cheeks sunken. He could not go on like this much longer. I told him I had had word Elizabeth was a little better, and that seemed to cheer him.
The gaoler answered our knock. 'William!' he called out. The fat turnkey appeared.
'We would see Mistress Wentworth,' I said.
'How is she this morning?' Joseph asked at the same moment.
'I don't know,' the turnkey answered. 'No one's been up there – we don't want her fever. Apart from that black apothecary; he came again yesterday, but maybe gaol fever doesn't affect such as him.'
'Will you take us to her?'
The turnkey grunted, but led us away to the stairs. It was a relief not to have to see the Hole again. I turned to Joseph as he followed me up the winding stair. 'I have some news,' I said. 'Some fresh evidence at last. I want to try again to get Elizabeth to speak.'
A desperate hope lit Joseph's features. I looked at him seriously. 'I must tax her with some hard things, sir. Things that will not be good to hear. About Sir Edwin's family.'
He took a deep breath, then nodded. 'Very well.'
The turnkey let us into Elizabeth's room. The breeze blew through the barred windows, stirring the cloth on the little table. Elizabeth was lying on her back, very still, but at least she was not twitching and muttering now. Her face was pale. I took a stool and sat down, bending forward so my face was close to hers. Joseph and Barak stood behind me, looking on. I saw the cut on her lip was unhealed, there was a nasty black scab all round it.
She must have been awake for as I leaned close she opened her eyes. They were dull and heavy. I took a deep breath.
'Elizabeth,' I said, 'Jack Barak here has been down your uncle Edwin's well.' Her eyes widened slightly, but she did not speak. 'We broke in last night, and took of the cap that had been put over it. Barak climbed down and saw what was there.'
Joseph's mouth fell open. 'You broke in!'
'It was the only way, Joseph.' I turned back to the silent girl. 'We placed ourselves in danger, Elizabeth, to find the truth. For your sake.' I paused. 'We saw them. All the poor animals. Your cat. And the boy.'
'What boy?' Joseph's voice was sharp with fear.
'There is the corpse of a little boy down the well.'
'Oh, Jesu.' Joseph sat down heavily on the bed. I saw tears well up in Elizabeth's eyes.
'I am sure you did not do those terrible things, Elizabeth-'
'Never,' Joseph said hotly. 'Never!'
'Was it Ralph?'
She coughed, and then finally spoke, in a low, sighing voice. 'Yes. Yes, it was.'
Joseph brought his hands up to his mouth, his expression horrified. I could see the thought had come to him, as it had to Barak, that here was a clear motive for Elizabeth to kill her cousin. I continued quickly. 'When I visited your uncle Edwin I noticed a bad odour coming from that well, and remembered Joseph telling me Ralph's body had a terrible smell on it when it was laid out at the coroner's. Elizabeth, when the steward Needler went to fetch up your cousin's body he must have seen what was down there, yet he said nothing and the family sealed off the well.' I paused, but though tears trickled down Elizabeth's cheeks her stare remained dull and hopeless. I went on.
'That must have been because the discovery of the boy down there would have resulted in a separate investigation. Needler said nothing in order to protect someone else. Who was it, Elizabeth?'
'Speak, girl, for Jesu's sake.' Barak said with sudden anger. 'You are putting your uncle through the torments of the damned.'
'You return to Judge Forbizer in three days.' I said quietly. 'If he cannot be satisfied, if you still do not speak, you will be crushed.'
She looked at me, her eyes empty. 'Let the crushing come. You cannot help me, sir. No one can. You must not try, it is no use. I am damned.' She continued, with a dreadful calmness. 'Once I believed in God, God who took care of all his creatures and showed man how he should live well and be saved by study of the Bible. The Bible the king gave to the people. I believed God helped us through the fallen world.'
'So should we all, Elizabeth,' Joseph said, clutching his hands together. 'So must we all.' She gave him a look I realized was pity, wincing as salt tears flowed onto her cut lip,
'What about the justice of this world?' Barak asked. 'What about punishment for murderers?'
She only glanced at him; his words did not stir her this time. 'I told you what was down there would shake your faith,' she told me. She paused, then let out a long, groaning breath. 'First Mother died, so painfully, from the great lump in her chest that wasted her to nothing. Then Father died too.' She coughed again. I offered her a bowl of water but she waved it away, looking at me fixedly.
'I sought consolation in books of prayer, sir. I entreated God to help me understand, but I seemed to be praying into a great dark silence. Then I was told our house was lost, our house where I grew up and was happy. I thought I would go to Uncle Joseph's in the country, but he said I must go to Uncle Edwin's.'
'It was for your good, Elizabeth,' Joseph said desperately. 'We thought it best for your prospects.'
'Grandam and Uncle Edwin did not want me, I knew that. They thought with my rough ways I might spoil their turning their three children into gentlefolk. But they did not know how cruel they were. They did not know how Ralph would torture any animal he could lay hands on, exploring all the different ways to inflict pain. Sabine and Avice brought him my poor Grizzy.'
'Ralph got them to bring him animals – they thought what he did amusing, though they didn't like getting blood or fur on their clean clothes. They were glad to have me to tease and torment, to relieve their boredom. They always used to say how bored with their lives they were.'
'What about your uncle Edwin?' I asked. 'Your grand-mother? You could have appealed to them.'
'Grandam knew, but she turned her blind eyes from it. She kept everything from Uncle Edwin, what his children really were. He cared only that they should make the best show they could as young gentlefolk.'
I passed a hand across my brow. 'It sounds like madness, a madness the three of them infected each other with. Then you came-'
'I did not know about Ralph at first. I thought he was different from his sisters; he was not fine manners one minute and cruelty the next, in the beginning he was friendly in a rough boy's way. I look like him, you know. Maybe God has chosen me to suffer for all their sins – do you think so?'
'No,' I said. 'It is you that are choosing to suffer now.'
She shook her head. 'Ralph took me for a walk and showed me a fox he had caught in a trap and left until it was weakened. He had come with a needle to put its eyes out. I freed it and told him it was a wicked thing he did. That turned him against me. After that he joined with his sisters in finding ways to torment me.'
'You should have told Edwin,' Joseph said.
Elizabeth smiled then, a smile so despairing it chilled me. 'He would have believed nothing against Ralph or the girls. And Grandam cares only to see the girls well married. Sabine has a fancy for the steward Needler and Grandam used that, used him to try and keep the girls under control. She needs them to behave well on the surface until they have found rich young men.' She looked away. 'Pity any such gentleman, not to know what he has married until it is too late.'
'What about the other servants? How much do they know? There must have been – been terrible cries from the animals.' All at once I felt sick, black bile curdling in my stomach.
'Ralph did his vile deeds down the well. He had a little ladder. It was his torture cell as well as his hiding place. I think the servants heard things, but they said nothing – they wanted to keep their positions. Uncle Edwin pays well even if he makes them all go to church twice on Sundays.' Elizabeth had stopped crying now, her eyes had taken on a more focused look. 'I remember Ralph had talked of finding some beggar child to toy with, but the girls said he must be careful not to be caught. There was a little crippled boy and his sister who begged around our street.'
'And the girl was Sarah?'
'Yes. When poor Sarah was put in the Hole I remembered her. Ralph must have enticed her brother away.'
