‘Bloody hell. I have been in a fathomless sleep.’
‘Do you remember anything?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I will leave you now. What was your work before you were banished to the darks?’
‘Picking the nasty oakum.’
‘You will be rid of the chain tomorrow. I will have you moved to the kitchen in a few days. A big room with light and better food will help. And you will not work alone. It makes the time go quicker. But I warn you. Best behaviour or you will be back withering in the darks.’
‘You mustn’t leave yet! I have something to tell you.’
‘It is very late.’ Clovis gathers the empty pot of wine, the candle, sponge and her cap.
‘No, no, there is something I must tell you. I do not know why, but I must.’
‘It will wait.’ Clovis puts her off as part of the test.
‘No, please. It cannot wait. It is urgent. I beg you.’
In the pitch black Clovis’s satisfied smile goes unseen by the prisoner.
‘Go ahead.’
‘I am here for theft. But it is not my only crime. I planned and committed another. My baby. My second child.’
Henrietta pauses, thoroughly confused. She does not know why she has admitted this, her deepest, most dangerous secret. And words rise again, different words, terrible words stream out of her mouth like thick fumes.
‘I set it up. I worked it so that another would be punished in my stead.’ She continues just above a whisper, ‘Hung by a rope as thick as my thigh.’
‘Good night, Henrietta.’ Clovis is deeply satisfied that her whispers proved successful.
‘I … I should not have said. No one knows. Not a soul. You mustn’t tell anyone, Clovis Fowler.’
‘One day I will come to you. You will do me a service. If on that day you are tempted to renege on our agreement, I promise you this: I will make you howl for your mother like a blind baby wolf.’
‘What? What will you ask of me?’
A grave silence is her answer.
Henrietta lifts her chain and carries it to the wooden plank. The links feel heavier on this dank chill night. She has allowed this red witch to add to its weight in uncountable, invisible rings. She has stained her own future with her confession. She despairs not for her crime, but that a woman like Clovis Fowler should know of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
1841
Soon the trees will be bare and bony. Summer is done, the harvest is in and London is brown and drab. Tobacco-coloured leaves crunch and crackle underfoot. Chimneys produce tunnels of thick, black smoke that choke the air. Winter is coming. The first day of November is mindful of death.
Lights for the departed suffuse Lawless House. Though maidens no longer go souling, soul cakes displayed on a silver platter await pitchers of cold milk to soothe and cool those in Purgatory. Rafe will go to bed tonight with a bag of broad beans and candies, a tradition honouring the link between past and present. The table in the formal dining room will be set for the dead to feast. The sisters began praying the novena for the departed on the 24th of October and it ends today on All Hallows. It is good to be home again. The fires of Lawless House do not dull the thrill of their time abroad.
The sisters meticulously planned an itinerary on the continent and were rewarded for their efforts when they witnessed the opening of a young mind.
‘I see,’ Rafe said, time and again, when he viewed the great works of art, the crumbling antiquities, and the Italian grandmothers who sat in the warm sun making magic with their olives and lemons, who then placed something gorgeous to eat in his hands.
Today the incense in Lawless House is as strong as the smoke that circled in the exquisite old churches of Europe and is sure to gently swirl up to the top floor of the house and awaken Rafe. Verity sets out a pitcher of water, a few soul cakes and the ossa dei morti, the traditional biscuits named the bones of the dead, made from the recipe a Palermo nun shared with them.
Constance recalls the lightning-bolt of jealousy that jumped from the pages when Clovis Fowler responded to her written request asking her permission to take Rafe to the continent. She relented for a hefty sum.
The day maids serve breakfast early this morning. Rafe dips a sweet roll in his cocoa.
‘Do you think Bertie’s body is incorrupt like the saints we visited in Italy?’ He chews and contemplates.
‘Do you have an opinion on it, Rafe?’ Constance asks.
‘She was very good, our Bertie. Whenever you or Auntie Very were long sleeping she made extra marmalade – she allowed me to eat it on buns until I burst – and sometimes she sang after she finished her beer. She was very brave, especially when the foreign men came.’
‘The what? What foreign men?’ Verity asks.
‘A fortnight before she died. They came to the door and asked if Master Fowler lived here. She said, “Wait right there.” Then she closed and locked the door and came into the library and told me to hide in the basement. She forgot that it is always locked. I hid in the pantry instead, behind the sacks. Then she fetched her rifle. Did you know Bertie had a rifle? Did you ever find it? She told me she shot one of them in the foot.’
‘Rafe! Why did you … why did she not tell us? Are you sure you remember correctly? You were only five years old when Bertie died.’
‘Well, because she asked me not to! Yes, I remember exactly. Auntie Very was in the long sleep and you were
