Convenient Women Collection Read online

  I sealed the letter, then took another piece of paper. My hand shook, and ink spotted the page. I hoped he would be able to understand my slanted letters.

  Frank,

  Luella Blyth wants you dead. She is hunting you. I said I would help only so I may know her intentions. There is something about her. She is a danger – to us both. How should I proceed?

  Burn this.

  Yours,

  B

  Chapter 2

  The following day passed in agony as I waited for Frank’s response. And then the next morning Miss Grey insisted on the carriage ride, though I warned of rain clouds building on the horizon. I was right, for halfway through our journey the heavens opened. Miss Grey complained of the noise on the carriage roof and held her head in her hands, whimpering in pain. The windows had to be closed so she would not be splashed by the water, and I shall never know how I managed to contain myself for the remaining twenty minutes of the ride as the air grew thick and her whining grew louder.

  At least the onset of a headache sent her straight to bed when we returned. I stroked her hair as she closed her eyes and hummed some word-less tune that my mother once hummed to me until she fell asleep.

  Then I was out the door.

  The rain was beginning to ease off, as summer rain does. Only a few fat spots hit my hat and made black circles on my pale blue gown. The air was sweet – that delicious scent of dry earth once it’s been quenched – and I found that the freshness allowed me a moment of calm.

  Nevertheless, I was expecting Luella to have disappeared when I arrived at the grocer’s shop. The owner showed me the stairs at the rear of the building and said it was the first door on the left. I knocked, my breath held, readying myself for no reply when the doorknob rattled.

  ‘Come in,’ Luella said, half hidden behind the frame as if she’d been expecting me. Perhaps she had been watching from her window.

  I stepped inside. The place was neat; the bed was made, the surfaces clear. A little bag lay beside one flat pillow – Luella’s things packed and ready to go.

  ‘I did not know if you would still be here.’

  ‘You said you’d help me.’ She wandered to the table in front of the open window, sat on one of the two chairs, then nodded for me to take the other.

  The bare floorboards creaked as I crept towards her. What must the grocer have been thinking downstairs, for it was surely strange to have two women, so different in appearance and station, meet covertly in a rented room?

  ‘Are you too warm?’ she said.

  I shook my head, peeled off my gloves, and pressed a cool hand to my hot cheek. From the street below, I heard short snippets of conversations, women laughing, children’s shoes beating on the kerbsides, and I had a quick moment of dread. I would be leaving this place soon, and though I hated it most of the time, I suddenly realised I would miss it. The thought surprised me; my own tenderness towards places always surprised me for I had never lived anywhere longer than two years. Stowmouth’s peculiar ways had grown on me, though I had never admitted it to myself until then.

  ‘How are you going to help me?’ She had crossed her arms and was leaning back in her chair as if my answer might be a piece of entertainment to be enjoyed.

  I breathed in deeply. ‘I know him. Frank, I mean.’

  There was no hint of surprise on her face other than the raising of one eyebrow. She really was very pretty, in a young and vulnerable sort of way. The more I looked at her, the more I was drawn to her. I was watching her pretty lips when she said, ‘How?’

  ‘I … We …’ The words stuck. I let out my frustration in a sigh and tugged the chain which hung around my neck out from under my gown. A plain gold band dangled from the end of it. She gazed at it like it was a hypnotist’s pendulum.

  ‘Married?’

  I nodded, then slipped the ring back into its place. She was frowning as I looked at her again.

  ‘It’s easier for me to find work as a single woman,’ I said.

  She sniffed, and her face became smooth, resigned. She stared through the open window, and a film of tears smudged her eyes. ‘Are you here to plead for him?’

  ‘For Frank, but for you too, Luella.’ I reached across the table and took her hands. They were shockingly cold, and she held still as I touched her. ‘Whatever Frank has done, it cannot be undone.’

  She withdrew her hands from mine. ‘Whatever he has done? You know what he’s done?’

  ‘I can imagine what you think he has done.’

  ‘And what’s that? Go on, tell me. Tell me, Bonnie!’

  ‘You think he killed Mr Campbell. You think he set your father up to hang for a crime that was not his.’

  Her lips parted, and it seemed like she was having trouble breathing. ‘Did he? Is that the truth?’

  I stood from my chair and paced the floor; I could not look out of the window at the happy families whose day was passing just like any other day.

  ‘Bonnie?’

  I waved my gloves before my heated face. Everywhere was so warm!

  ‘Bonnie, is Frank a murderer?’

  I couldn’t get my words out.

  ‘Bonnie, tell me! Am I right?’

  ‘Yes!’ I threw the gloves on the bed, then sank onto the thin mattress with my back to her; I could not meet her gaze. ‘Yes, you are right, Luella.’

  I heard her breath escape from her mouth, then a faint sniffing as she sobbed. Her face was in her hands, her shoulders quivering. I reached out to comfort her, but when I touched her, she leapt from her seat. She marched towards the door and turned the key – she was locking me in! She took the key out and dangled it before her.

  ‘You will tell me where he is.’ She dropped the key down the front of her gown.

  ‘Luella, he is a dangerous man.’

  ‘Tell me, Bonnie.’

  I edged closer to her, hands up, as if I was approaching a wild beast. ‘Luella, he is a violent man. He has hurt me. You think he will have any concerns about hurting you?’

  ‘I will hurt him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I will beat him.’

  I would have laughed if I had not been so scared; she was talking nonsense.

  ‘He will kill you in an instant if he suspects you. He will kill you before you can lay one finger on him.’

  ‘I will kill him!’ Her scream smashed into a cry. She doubled over, but I reached her before she fell to the floor and guided her to sit on the bed. I held her close to me, despite the throbbing heat that was coming from her, and let her weep against my bosom.

  ‘How can you stand it?’ she whispered once she had drained herself of emotion. ‘How can you bear to know what you know and live with it?’

  ‘I have no choice. I married him before I knew what he was.’

  ‘A murderer, you mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, and a finger of heat scratched down my spine.

  ‘You could be free of him.’ She said the words quietly. ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  She raised her head and looked up at me through her wet lashes, and for a moment I imagined her as my own daughter and rubbed her back and smiled kindly at her.

  ‘Then let us kill him,’ she said.

  ‘Us?’

  ‘I will do it, but you must tell me how. You know him, you know what will make him suspicious.’ She took my hands this time, and again I flinched at the iciness of her skin. ‘Please, Bonnie. For my father’s sake. For mine. For your sake.’

  ‘I do not think I can. He is a smart man; he will know something is wrong.’

  ‘Only if you show it.’ Luella unravelled herself from my embrace. Her face had paled from its redness, and now only the apples of her cheeks remained flushed and her eyes glassy from crying. She led me off the bed and to the table and chairs and made me sit. I let the breeze from the open window wash over me as she spoke. ‘Smart, you say. But I think men tend to lose that smartness with a woman, don’t they? I think they q
uite forget just how dangerous we can be.’

  A sickness was building in my stomach. I swallowed it down, but still my insides rolled around. I pushed my arms against my bodice and sat up straight. ‘You are not strong enough to beat him to death, Luella. That man has taken more fights than a tomcat.’

  ‘What about when he’s sleeping?’

  I tasted the tang of blood on my tongue and realised I’d been biting my lip. ‘What do you plan to do once you’ve killed him?’

  She sighed, shrugged.

  ‘I will not hang for you, Luella.’

  She turned her head towards me, ever so slowly, and gave me the coldest look I had ever seen in my life. ‘I know.’

  After glaring at me for a moment, she dragged her eyes off me to examine the patterns in the wood of the table. Her hand flew to her chest, and she fiddled with the chain.

  ‘Have you any money?’ I asked, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Enough for a boat?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  My fear was turning to frustration. She was closing in on herself; I could see her eyes hardening, and I wondered what thoughts were playing through her mind. I could not let too many memories surface for her, and I was getting impatient for the meeting to be over, for things to be sorted.

  There was no use trying to change her mind or steer her in the direction I wanted her to take. She was not going to give up; I could see it in the set of her lips, a determination which had been mirrored in her father. But I would not think of Samuel now. I could not let my conscience be pricked.

  ‘Arsenic.’

  She raised her eyes to me. ‘What?’

  ‘Kill Frank with arsenic.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Fly papers.’ I had been mulling the idea over all morning. All those little flies on the kitchen floor, dead before they knew it. It was not a quick death, nor painless, and for that I was sorry. ‘It will not be as obvious as a blow to the head. By the time the body is found, we can be halfway across the ocean.’

  ‘You’ll come with me?’

  ‘I shall have to, won’t I?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To make sure you keep our secret.’ I smiled, though it was a strain. ‘I shall lead you to Frank. I shall ready the poison. I shall keep him oblivious to our plan. And then you may pour him some tea and watch him drink it. Watch him die.’

  I could feel her buzz, her energy, chafing as she imagined it. The tiniest of smiles spread to a wide grin, and then she laughed. It was not the kind of laugh one would expect to roar from such a girl; it was manic and made me edge away from her. She wiped the corners of her eyes as she collected herself, blew out her breath, and shook her head.

  ‘You really are something, Bonnie.’

  ‘Will you do it, or will you leave now? It is not too late. It is easy to play at being murderers, but best for our fantasies to stay as fantasies.’

  ‘This ain’t no fantasy.’ She was serious again, and her unpredictability was something that made me wary of her. ‘My pa is dead. I will have justice.’ She walked to the door, dipped her hand into her bodice, and produced the key. She opened the door and ushered me out.

  ‘We leave at dawn,’ she said.

  I nodded before scurrying away. Back in my chamber, I lit a fire in the grate. I took Frank’s note from under my pillow where I had hidden it earlier and read it one last time before throwing it on the flames.

  Bonnie,

  Bring her to me. Keep her as your friend and go along with her plans. Prepare yourself and what we will need to end this once and for all.

  Frank

  After Cook left for the evening, I sat with Miss Grey in the drawing room and drank sherry with her. My clothes were already packed in my case, the trinkets I had stolen wrapped safely inside my skirts. All I had to do was wait, but I had never been very good at that.

  ‘Stop it,’ Miss Grey said, pointing at my leg which was tapping, though I hadn’t been aware of it. I held myself still and gazed out of the window.

  The sky was streaked in pinks and oranges, like stretched lily petals, and gulls glided across it, calling out to each other before they went to sleep for the night.

  I ran my fingers over the silk of the chair arm, felt the lumps of the stuffing under my legs, pressed my feet into the thick carpet. I smiled at Miss Grey, and she smiled back, and I brought my sherry glass to my mouth to feel the shapes of the cut glass against my lips.

  Odd, how we want to drink everything in when we are about to lose it all. I wished to print that night on my eyelids, to store it in my memory forever. Not because I would mourn the loss of Miss Grey or her house, but because it had been a part of me, another small piece that made me a whole, another bit of me that must be lost.

  I had been the same when I had left my mother, and I had promised myself I would not forget that night, but over the years it had faded so that I could not be sure if the rug before the fire had been patterned or plain, or if we had eaten meat pie, or if I really had downed my glass of beer before I told mother I loved her, or if her husband had opened my door that night. I could not be sure of the memory at all and wondered if I had imagined those few final hours, when I still called myself a daughter, so that they seemed more special than they really were.

  It would be the same with this night and with Miss Grey. In a few years’ time, I would forget how the chair creaked with every breath I took, how the sherry stung my sore lip, how the waves of the sea less than a mile away acted as a constant lullaby in the background of our lives.

  ‘I have some grave news, Miss Grey.’ She had become sleepy; I had left it until now to tell her, when her strength had ebbed for the day. ‘My aunt is unwell.’

  Miss Grey’s eyelids strained to open. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Something in her stomach and bowels; I should not like to tell you the details. She is in great pain.’

  Miss Grey grunted, and her eyelids drooped. She never had sympathy for anyone, for she never believed anyone was worse off than herself. It made me flare to see her so careless, for what if I really did have an aunt who was dying in such a horrid way? What if I really was on the brink of losing someone I loved, and the only thing she could do was grunt?

  ‘So I shall be leaving you. Tomorrow.’

  Her eyes flew open, and she stammered for a reply. I had risen by that point, and I was shaking out my skirts and straightening the chair when she grabbed my hand.

  ‘You cannot leave me.’

  ‘Your brother knows of my situation. He shall find someone else for you. You must understand, Miss Grey, I have no choice but to return to my aunt and care for her.’

  ‘You must care for me!’ Her anger was breaking into fear. She started to cry. I kneeled before her and took her hands.

  ‘You have been so very kind to me, Miss Grey. Truly, I wish to stay here with you, but my aunt is the only family I have left. You understand?’

  She was sobbing, and her mucus dripped onto my skin.

  ‘Someone else must be able to care for her. Why should you go? Why should you leave me?’

  ‘It is my duty.’ I peeled my hands out of her grasp, and she cried as if she was a babe torn from the teat. ‘Mr Grey will have everything arranged, I am sure. You will not be alone for long. Now, let’s get you into bed.’

  I guided her to her chamber, dressed her in her nightgown, and set her under her covers. I rubbed her cold feet with my hands, filled a bed pan with hot coals from the grate and put it in with her. I perched on the mattress and stroked her hair, which was long and grey and as coarse as hemp.

  ‘Will you sing?’ she asked, clutching her covers to her chin.

  I hummed the tune for her and brushed away an old tear that lay on her cheek and stayed with her until she slept. Then I tiptoed to the morning room and unlocked the bureau. I found the little box at the back where she kept her money and which she opened once a month to check there was still the same amount
in there as the month before. I took five pounds. By the time she counted it again, she would have a new companion and, as such, a suspect. How Miss Grey would lament the loss of her old, trusted friend, Bonnie Hearn!

  Downstairs in the basement, I soaked the fly papers and sat on the kitchen stool, chin resting in my hand as I listened to the night-time noises of the house. The world around me was cooling, the stars were twinkling, and the moon was shining over Stowmouth. Somewhere in the mire of the streets, people would be as awake as I was, doing goodness knows what under cover of darkness. I thought of Luella amidst the thieves and whores, and I wondered if she too was sitting on a chair at the table and gazing out of the window, thinking about what I was doing. Perhaps she was in bed, sleeping soundly, content in the knowledge that her plan was about to commence. I would never know how she spent that night.

  In the flickering candlelight, I poured the fly-paper water into a flask. It would pass as whiskey if anyone asked. I pressed the papers into the range so Cook would burn them in the morning.

  Upstairs in my quaint little room at the side of the house which had a partial view of the green (Miss Grey had the chamber at the back of the house overlooking her garden which she liked to watch but never venture into), I sat on the bed and gazed at the sky. It was navy and seemed to glisten like velvet; it was a beautiful night to commence a terrible thing – wasn’t it always the same? The note to Frank rested in my hands.

  Frank,

  We are on our way. I have the poison. Be ready.

  B

  I stared at those words over and over again, trying to decide if part of me felt any guilt. Was there a stirring in my gut? Did my eyes prick with tears? No.

  I must say that I was not a completely callous woman. Hadn’t I tried to dissuade her, to tell her that Frank was a dangerous man, that death lay ahead of her? And hadn’t she relished the challenge?

  I thought of her looking up at me through her lashes after she had cried on my shoulder. I imagined her as my own child, and still nothing changed in my heart. She was not a child. She was not someone to be cuddled and petted. She was a threat, and she was here for blood. If she baited the bear, she would be bitten. She just didn’t know it was me she was baiting.