The Death of Lucy Kyte (23 page)
Read The Death of Lucy Kyte Online
Authors: Nicola Upson
The next few entries showed William in a surprisingly good light, taking charge of the farm and working hard after his brother's death, but Josephine could not help thinking about Maria, and how isolated and frightened she must have been.
19 March
Maria left today for Sudbury. William has book'd lodgings for her to have the child there, and they left together. She did not want to go and has been low for the last month, but she promis'd to write and let me know how she is. William came back this evenin' in high spirits. I expect he is glad to have Maria out o' the way.
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26 March
Letter from Maria this mornin', askin' if I will go and see her. The Missis said I c'd have Thursday off as long as I leave the meals ready and do not fall behind wi' my work. She w'd never have given it to me if she knew where I was goin' or what is bein' kept from her, and I feel poor for deceivin' her.
She came into the kitchen later, which she never does, and caught me with Molly. She ask'd who the child was, so I told her and apologised, but she sat down and took Molly on her knee for ½ an hour while I work'd. When she left, she said she hop'd to see her again, and it was the most content I have seen her since the Master went. I suppose she expected this house to be ringin' with grandchildren, but we are a far cry from that at present and the one she has got comin' she will never know about if William has his way.
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29 March
Took the coach to Sudbury and arriv'd at midday. Maria is stayin' in Plough Lane, and her rooms and the woman lookin' after her are nice enough. She was glad to see me, but seem'd in poor spirits and I c'd tell she had been cryin'. I thought William was neglectin' her, knowin' how busy he is wi' the farm, but she says he has been kind, payin' for her lodgings and the best doctors, comin' to see her twice a week and bringin' her nice things. Still, I have hardly seen her so low and it is more than the baby gettin' her down. She misses Thomas Henry and worries he will forget her, and said once or twice that her family will have hardly notic'd she has gone. And she does not smile as she us'd to when she talks about William. She feels trapp'd and is makin' the best of it, but that is not love.
Got back late to a dark house and William waitin' for me at the top of the stairs. He knew where I'd been and ask'd how Maria was. I told him she w'd be pleas'd to be home. He nodded and let me go to my bed.
Josephine shivered, although the room was not cold. The incident was simply expressed, and she could not help but embellish it with her own imagination â the shadows of the Corder house, the silence of grief and the smell of sickness, William waiting silently in the darkness to safeguard his secret. For the first time, Josephine sensed that this girl â paid by the Corders to do as she was told, seemingly without a family to look out for her â was as vulnerable in her way as Maria.
3 April
Master James took a turn for the worse and we were up ½ the night with him. He is wastin' away, and his face is so pale and hollow that I can hardly look at him. All night he was troubled by a cough which comes in waves and leaves him pantin' and exhausted. It frightens me to be with him and I was glad when daylight came. The Missis is despair one minute and hope the next, and there is no tellin' which it will be.
Fetch'd the doctor first thing and saw Mrs Martin down Water Lane with George and Thomas Henry. A stranger w'd o' thought they were both her boys, and I was glad I had not seen them last week when I was tryin' to comfort Maria.
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7 April
Some good news at last! Maria has had a son, a little brother for TH, and she is well and recoverin'. William disappear'd, on farm business so he said, and when he came back I look'd for a sign of pride or joy in his face, but there was nothin'. God only knows how things will be when Maria brings the baby home.
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17 April
Maria is back, so call'd to see her between clearin' the dinner and gettin' the supper. Pick'd some bluebells and cowslips on the way, and I swear they were the only bright things in that cottage. The baby is a poor little thing, sickly-lookin' and small tho' he went his full time, and Maria cannot take to him as she w'd like. Mrs Martin has him most o' the time. Maria is tired and at her wits' end wi' the endless back and forth between William and her parents about marriage, as if it is of no matter. And perhaps it is not. Something has died in Maria, and she seems not to care now what happens to her. She is lost, and I do not know how to help her.
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25 April
William sent me to the Martins wi' some money this mornin'. It is the first time he has ask'd me to go between them, and I was glad of the excuse to leave the house. I have tried to see Maria most days to lift her spirits, but it is hard to get out sometimes, with John and James so sick. She was upstairs wi' the baby, as she does not want anyone to know she is back. I hate to see her there â it goes against her nature to hide away, and she has never liked to stop inside. The garden is lookin' poor for missin' her. She told me William has agreed to marriage at last, altho' he says he cannot set a date while everythin' in his family is unsettled, wi' more grief ahead for his mother. He cannot dally too long as far as Maria is concern'd. She is sick of love, and has sense enough to know that bein' tied to him by law will never make her a proper wife, one he can be proud of to his family. She w'd refuse him, I think, but for her father. She has lost her own will. It is a wicked thing to wish for, but I hope William's weakness will save them both.
As she read on, it seemed to Josephine that the relentless wearing down of Maria's spirit was as tragic in its own way as her murder, and she could not begin to imagine how bleak and hopeless her future must have seemed. How many women did this diary speak for? she wondered. Women who did not go on to be as notorious as Maria, but whose fate was a slower, longer death â trapped in a loveless marriage if they were lucky, for ever tainted by scandal if they were not. It always amazed her that the shame of illegitimacy was not diluted by its ordinariness, even now; it touched every family, including her own, but inclined none to understanding. Her father's younger sister had been a domestic servant and had fallen pregnant at twenty â to the man of the house, Josephine assumed, although no one had ever told her that and she soon learned not to ask. It had happened long before she was born but, throughout her childhood, her cousin was still known within the family as Mary's bastard, and neither mother nor son had truly forgiven each other for the lives they could never have: marriage and a head held high on one side; certainty and belonging on the other. The two women were separated by sixty years, but shame was the same whatever age it lived in.
30 April
William came back in the early hours, and had words wi' the Missis later. Went to see Maria between my chores, but knew somethin' was wrong the minute I stepp'd in the cottage. Mr Martin sat starin' into the fire and even his wife was lost for words. She told me the child had died in the night, but that is all she w'd say. Went up to Maria, and saw that tiny body in a makeshift box, as far out o' sight as can be in the little end room where Thomas Henry usually sleeps. I cannot recall seein' anythin' more wretch'd, or lift myself out o' this sadness for a soul who was not lov'd nor wanted for a single moment of his short life.
Maria w'd not get out o' bed and barely spoke to me, and the blankness in her face frightens me more than all the tears and despair o' the last few days. Downstairs, the Martins were arguin' over where to bury the child, and it seems he is not even to have a proper Christian funeral. Stay'd with Maria for a long time, even tho' it w'd get me into trouble and even tho' she did not want me there. Ask'd her if William knew, and he does. Her parents are worried that he will not have to marry her now, and I chided myself for bein' silly enough to mistake their troubl'd looks for grief.
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2 May
Samuel call'd at the back door after market. He is worried about me, he says, and it is true I have been short and distant, so promis'd to walk over Thistley Lay with him later. A beautiful evenin', it was, with the cherry trees a mass of pink and white and the laburnum in full bloom, but I c'd not enjoy it. Samuel was kind and did his best to cheer me and I wanted nothin' more than to tell him why I am sad, but it is not my secret and I know my silence hurt him.
Sat late into the night with Master John. Heard Maria cryin' in William's room on my way up to bed and listen'd to make sure she was alone before goin' to her. William brought her up the back stairs earlier, and was off buryin' the baby. Her parents think they have taken him to Sudbury where he was born, so she must stay in the house long enough to give truth to the lie. Stay'd with her until I heard the back door close, then came to bed, my dress soak'd in her tears.
A sadness crept up on Josephine as quietly and as gradually as the coming on of the night. She got up to pour a drink and stood at the window, looking out into the blackness. Somewhere nearby, at the edge of the wood, a vixen howled, but she could see nothing outside â no stars, no lights, no movement. She drew the curtain across the void, hoping to shut out the sense of oblivion that she felt so strongly, but it lingered with her in the room, created as much by the unsettling world of the diary as it was by the physical remoteness of the cottage. She half-wished that she was reading the manuscript in London, where she would not have felt so isolated by both place and time, but she had come too far to stop now.
13 May
Maria sent little George with a note this mornin', askin' me to meet her by Flaggy Pond. William has said that Constable Baalham is threatenin' to take her up for bastard children, and she wanted to know if it was true. I have heard nothin' in the village, but I have been about less than usual so it may be. She is frighten'd ½ to death at the thought of goin' to prison and leavin' Thomas Henry, but William has said he will take her to Ipswich tomorrow and marry her there, and she has agreed. She is here with him now. I c'd hear them arguin' as I pass'd his door.
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14 May
No sign o' Maria this mornin'. William took his breakfast with his mother, so I nipp'd upstairs but the room was empty. Kept waitin' for him to leave the house after that but he stay'd and help'd with his brothers. Poor James is nearin' the end, and perhaps that is why they have not gone. God knows I have no time for William and the way he has treated Maria, but it is heartless of the Martins to plague him when his brother lies dyin' and his mother needs him. Not all parents are as keen to rid themselves of a child, and I c'd happily shake Mrs Martin â for this will be her doin'. Maria's father only does as he is told.
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16 May
Maria is beside herself because William says they cannot take Thomas Henry with them when they go to marry. He is to stay behind for the present, and she must be parted from the only thing in the world she loves. She fears that William will never let her fetch her son and that TH will forget her, and cries with rage at the thought of Mrs Martin takin' her place with her son just as she has with her father â but she still has the threat of arrest hangin' over her. To my mind, there is precious little difference 'tween the two sorts o' prison open to her, so I told her to get her father to talk to the constable â but she said she c'd not trust her parents to tell her the truth as they are desperate for her to marry. There is nothin' more to be said. They are goin' to Ipswich tomorrow, and she is to be ready.
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17 May
C'd hardly bring myself to wait on William this mornin'. I c'd brook losin' Maria if she were happy, but he is takin' her away against her will and it is not only Thomas Henry who will miss her. He went out after breakfast. I watch'd him walk across the back fields to the Martins' cottage, and felt more alone than I have ever been. I have always had Maria to talk to and laugh with, and even tho' things have been difficult and out o' the ordinary for months, she was still here. I do not know what I will do without my friend.
Clean'd the scullery so the Missis w'd not see me cryin', but William was back ½ an hour later and stay'd for the rest o' the day. No notion what is happenin', and if the doubt unsettles me, what can it be doin' to Maria?
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18 May
A lovely day, but I c'd not enjoy it. She is gone. William came upstairs this mornin' while I was cleanin' his room and told me to put some of James's clothes in a bag. I thought they were takin' him somewhere for his health, but William took the bag and left the house at a ¼ to twelve. With all the comins and goins of the last week, I had begun to hope the worst w'd never happen and was content in my work for a while, but this time William did not come back. So Maria is gone, and I do not know when I will see her again.
The simplicity of the entry was particularly poignant, Josephine thought. By the time the words were set down, Maria was dead. Her friend's ignorance of what had really happened was heartbreaking, and Josephine would have given anything to be able to reach back through the years and let her know the truth. In her mind's eye, she pictured Maria saying goodbye to her young son and walking across the fields, dressed in William's dying brother's clothes, and wondered how the diarist would feel when she knew she had unwittingly colluded in his plan. In all the melodramas, whether on stage or screen, Maria was killed at night in the middle of a storm, but the reality was so much more powerful: an early summer's day, when the year promised so much and the sun was at its highest â that was no time to be wrenched from the world.