She passed a glass of port over my shoulder. “What did he print yesterday?”
“Oh.” I sipped, leaning into Clarke’s—now blessedly filled out—torso. “Tripe about a robber who stole a boat along with its cargo of sardines. None of the people interested in that story can read, but never fear, I’ll set it all right tomorrow.”
I had never been more mistaken.
• • •
That night, rather than the high percussion of slaps, the deep thud of blows met our ears.
Clarke and I both were out of our bed instantly, praying for the sound resembling a rolling pin striking a veiny beefsteak to stop; it did not stop.
“What are we to do?” Clarke whispered. She dived for her robe, mindless magnanimity surging through her. “I’ll go down and—”
“You’re not going anywhere!” I captured her elbow.
My throat was tight with he could so easily harm you—by mistake, in the braying torrential rage from which some men suffer; but Clarke tore from my grip.
We heard, “Get up, you haudacious piece of baggage!” and luckily we were already tearing down the staircase, for God knows what He might have allowed if we had not done so.
When I reached the ground floor, Clarke stood with her fingers hovering before her own mouth. Mr. Grizzlehurst had wheeled to face her, chest brokenly wheezing and fists knotted. Mrs. Bertha Grizzlehurst lay upon the floor exercising her habitual silence with her arms clutched around her belly and her temple bleeding . . . but no, not just her temple, I thought, for there is so very much—
“Bertha.” Mr. Grizzlehurst looked as if his favourite toy had somehow come to life and bitten him—as if he were the one hurt.
Mrs. Grizzlehurst made a sound through her nose, more a whisper than a whimper, which caused a strange calm to descend as if a cannon had fired next to my ear.
My fingers circled Clarke’s wrist and I pulled her back, keeping the link between us gentle. The blades in my eyes I saved for Mr. Grizzlehurst and, when I swept them to him, sweat broke out over his shaking jowls.
“Get out,” I ordered. “I’ll take care of everything, just don’t hurt her anymore. Get out.”
We bundled an unsteady Hugh Grizzlehurst out the door, Clarke and I; he blubbered a bit, stumbled, groaned as we pushed him into the street.
His wife made not a sound until the heavy bar across the door scraped into place, and we had gathered flannels and hot water and the shallow hip bath, and I had scrubbed the too-solid stain from the floor; then we all wept long and low at the waste the world produces, and the way in which a baby might have been born to a doting mother but was not.
All is colourful flashes when I remember that night—scraps of scarlet emotion, the pale violet sound of soft keening. I think of Mrs. Grizzlehurst’s grey head as Clarke cradled it, rocking, and the throbbing sensation that I ought to have been doing more: as if I had been summoned there following a terrible incantation, a spiteful Greek goddess dressed in radiant sapphire and Mrs. Grizzlehurst the supplicant at my altar, offering more blood than I ever wanted to see again for the rest of my life. It was easier to think myself an observer from another realm than merely a parentless child who had just watched something unspeakable take place.
So I scrubbed the floor thrice and made everyone tea with extra brandy and milk, and I soaked rusty linens and watched the sun rise and periodically glared down from our garret window to check for Mr. Grizzlehurst’s return, not feeling anything.
When I think of that morning, I remember how I felt, however; I remember that morning very clearly indeed.
• • •
People vary widely in their opinions of female usefulness; my aunt Patience, for instance, preferred them to be approximately as useful as antimacassars. I had, in the wake of two murders, no illusions about what I was capable of—and Clarke, when we retreated to our room that dawn after settling Mrs. Grizzlehurst in bed, seemed to be developing dangerous faith in our combined capabilities.
“He’s no better than a murderer.”
Clarke paced as the moon dissolved like a sugar cube in the spreading sunlight. At fifteen, she was strikingly lovely, with her champagne curls pinned up into a cloud and her freckles grown more populous from singing in the midday square. I watched her, a queer ethereal creature myself, fretting as she stalked from wall to wall