The Death of Lucy Kyte (26 page)
Read The Death of Lucy Kyte Online
Authors: Nicola Upson
As far as Josephine could recall, James Curtis had given a full account of that inquest in his book and she took it down from the shelf to consult. Sure enough, all the witness testimonies were reported in full and she scanned them eagerly to see who had given the evidence about William's room. It only took her a few seconds to find the name she was looking for, and she slapped the desk in triumph. Lucy Baalham. The maiden name of Lucy Kyte. The village constable had been called Baalham, too, she remembered, and wondered if they were related, or if it was a common Suffolk name.
It proved nothing, of course. This Lucy Kyte had probably had children and grandchildren who were named after her, and it might easily be a living, breathing relative who was to take whatever would bring her peace from the cottage, but somehow Josephine doubted it. She remembered what Bert had said about Hester living in the past, about her ghosts being more real to her than her neighbours, and she knew in her heart that Hester's legacy was to Maria's friend, whose diary she knew so well. The revelation raised as many questions as it answered, but she set them to one side until she had finished the story. Lucy's story, as she now knew it to be.
8 May
His wife came today. I wanted to hate her for Maria's sake, but there is no evil in her. She speaks well and she is pretty, tho' if Maria was in the room, you w'd not notice her. And I c'd not help feelin' that Maria was in the room, that she had come out from the shadows of the back corridors to look at her rival. And I felt her pain when I saw that William's wife is carryin' his child.
A child, Maria. How will you rest, knowin' that there will still be somethin' of William on this earth? And she will have her child to love, when yours was taken from you and buried where you c'd never find him, when William stole out at night with his shame in a box and got rid of it as if it was nothin' to him.
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18 May
It is a year to the day since Maria went to the barn. I cannot stop thinkin' about what I was doin' at the time she died. Was I cookin' the dinner or cleanin' the parlour or scrubbin' the stairs? I sh'd have known she was dead.
Hundreds of people have been to the barn since Maria was found, wantin' to see where she died. They are takin' it down piece by piece for keepsakes and soon there will be nothin' left. I w'd take an axe to it myself if I c'd bear to go near it. I have not been to Red Barn Cottage since they found Maria. I cannot be easy there, seein' that place from the windows, thinkin' about that day.
It was a cruel trick of fate that had brought Lucy to a new home so close to where her friend had died, Josephine thought, but there would have been nothing she could do about it. It would have been a tied cottage, linked to Samuel's position on the farm, and there would have been no question of moving, even if Samuel had understood how hard it was for her. She must have been cheering inside when someone set light to it, although its horror would not have been so easy to erase.
19 May
Voices woke me in the night and I saw two men walkin' past the house wi' spades and ropes. I watch'd their lanterns up to the church, and I knew what they were doin'. There has been talk, altho' I did not want to believe it.
When I got to the churchyard, they had put burnin' torches by Maria's grave. There were three men I did not know and the parish clerk. I stood by the Gospel Oak and watch'd, not able to bear what was happenin'. I open'd my mouth to shout, but the sound died in my throat. There was nothin' I could do. There is evil at work and Maria will never rest.
They lifted her coffin out and plac'd it by the side of the grave. They forc'd the lid off and pull'd at her body with handkerchiefs over their mouths, and one of them took somethin' from her coffin and put it in a sack. When they had seen all they wanted, they left the dead to themselves. I waited until they had gone and put Maria's flowers back on her grave. Then I lay down on the earth and wept for her until it was light.
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15 July
Seven days in a row it has rain'd from dawn to dusk. The rivers burst their banks, and the meadows are deep in water. Samuel came to see me at dinner time. The pond has flooded and the cottage, too, so I went to help. Tried not to think about the barn but all the time it was in my mind. I had to draw the curtains over the window. Molly thought it was a fine old game, all the moppin' and buckets and rain, and she tired herself out by teatime. Took her up to bed because Samuel said she was missin' me. Her window looks to the barn, and I remember'd her face there on the night of the harvest, watchin' us, before Maria was found and we knew what we were dancin' on. I sat in the window and told her stories until she fell asleep, then watch'd as the barn faded into the darkness. If it rains for forty days and forty more, that place will never be cleans'd.
The atmosphere in that room now could not have been more different from the scene that Lucy described, where all the horrors were kept at bay on the other side of the window, and Josephine wondered if the sadness had actually found its way into the cottage long before Hester's time.
16 July
At last, the rain has stopp'd. Folk began arrivin' for the fair, and I watch'd them comin' over the fields, laughin' and talkin'. Since they found Maria, we are full o' strangers. I wish they w'd stay away.
A man has been askin' questions in the Cock and Phoebe Stowe says he is a newspaper man from London. She says there is to be a book about Maria's murder, and this man Curtis has come to find out more about the village where Maria and William liv'd. Samuel pointed him out to me on the green so that I w'd know him if he came to the house. He has sandy red hair and looks kind, but I suppose it is his job to make himself popular among us. Samuel said we sh'd not speak to him, because gossip is not fair when William has not been tried yet, but I w'd like this man to know who Maria was if he is goin' to write about her, and I do not feel like bein' fair.
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17 July
Pryke came first thing to tell the Missis that some showmen were makin' an amusement of the murder. She sent him up to the green with a warnin' to them not to play foul with her son's name.
It is the busiest fair we have ever had, but no one is here for the cherries, nor even the brandy. Me and Samuel walk'd among the stalls, and every way we turn'd, the ballad-mongers sang of William and Maria. By the Cock, there was a tent with a painted wooden sign outside, âThe Late Murder of Maria Martin'. Samuel tried to stop me but I shook him off and paid my penny. It was crowded inside, but I push'd my way to the front and star'd at the wax models â a butcher'd woman lyin' on a door, wi' the coroner and jury lookin' on. Maria, the day after she was found. It was a terrible sight and I c'd tell from the look on Samuel's face that it was truthful. The crowd laugh'd and cheer'd, and I c'd stand it no longer. Without thinkin' I took one of the burnin' torches from the side of the stage and set it to the curtain. The flames took hold and a woman near me scream'd, then someone threw a pail of water. Samuel dragg'd me away before the showman c'd catch me. The crowd laugh'd, and the anger and shame are still with me. I miss Maria. She is the only one who w'd know how I feel.
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24 July
Maria's birthday. She w'd have been 27. There is a row in the village over a stone for her. Some have offer'd money so her grave might be mark'd after William is brought to justice, but the Revd Whitmore has said that it will never happen as long as he has power to stop it. He says that a stone will remind folk of how she died. Does he think we will forget even if her grave is only mark'd by grass? He lets them plunder the dead in his graveyard, but worries that a stone might upset the livin'.
Went to meet Mr Curtis again today, and he ask'd me more about Maria. He writes while I am talkin', strange marks that make no sense to me. He tells me it is somethin' that newspaper men use to make a true record of what is told to them, and he show'd me what some of the marks mean so that I can use them in my diary. It is nice to talk about Maria in a normal way, to remember her as she was before all this happen'd, when she was just my friend.
Engrossed in the story, Josephine had allowed the fire to burn low in the grate and she put more logs on, holding an old newspaper in front to coax the flames into life again. It had begun to rain outside, and the water down the chimney made the wood spit and crackle spitefully in the grate. She settled back down, determined to finish the diary before sleep got the better of her, but she had not got far before she was disturbed again. This time, the footsteps were inside, climbing the far stairs slowly, step by step, as if too weary to reach the top. Panic gripped her, but she listened intently as the noise drifted away, and decided that she must be mistaken; the steps were not muffled, as they would have been on the shabbily carpeted stairs she knew, but hollow, as if on bare wood. The sound must have come from somewhere else.
She took a lamp through to the kitchen and hesitated, trying to work out what was different about the room. The stair curtain was pulled back, just as she had left it, but the door that had always stuck against the bump in the floor was now completely open and moved freely back and forth when she tested it. The stairs were in shadows, and she wished she had left a lamp burning in her bedroom so that she would not have to climb into the darkness. She paused again, listening, but there was nothing â no creaking of floorboards overhead to confirm her worst fears, no rattling windows to explain away what she had heard. Frightened now, she followed the beam of her lamp up to the first floor, but her bedroom was reassuringly familiar, the other rooms empty and undisturbed. There was no one else in the cottage, and she cursed Lucy Kyte for playing havoc with her imagination, and herself for allowing it to happen.
The boxroom smelt of sickness. In spite of Marta's cleaning, the heavy, cloying odour had returned, stronger even than before. She took the lamp over to the window and put it down on the window seat, drawn against her better judgement to the words scarred into the wood. The letters seemed deeper than ever, and there were more than she remembered. The room, too, seemed more oppressive tonight, but how much of what she felt here was Hester's cumulative darkness, and how much Lucy's? How much â if she stayed in the cottage and allowed it to happen â would be her own? The lamplight in the window threw a likeness back at her, but the face she saw was pale and drawn, transformed by a sadness she had never seen before, a reflection barely recognisable as her own.
She turned away, took the blanket from her bed and went downstairs. The stub of her candle was guttering on the table, and some of the wax had run like tears onto the pages. The manuscript had been put down hurriedly and she found herself reading the section about the floods again before she realised that the pages were out of order. Still unsettled, she found it harder to concentrate now.
29 July
Mr Curtis came to say goodbye. He leaves on the Bury coach in the mornin' ready for the trial. He has promis'd to bring me a copy of his book as soon as it is publish'd. I told him that the only promise I want from him is to do justice to Maria, and he smil'd. I will miss his smiles and his kindness and his voice. He has given me back the Maria I knew, and I am grateful to him for it.
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1 August
The Missis told me that I am to go to the trial and give evidence â for William, not for Maria. I am to speak up for the family that pays me, and not for the friend who knew every secret of my heart. I w'd rather die than betray her like this, but I cannot see a way out of it.
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7 August
My lodgings are in Sparhawk Street, and the Missis has had to pay a guinea for a single bed. The inns and public houses are full, and Bury men must be smilin' for the good fortune the trial has brought them. There is not room for everyone. Folk are sleepin' in doorways and on pavements, carin' little for their comfort as long as they are here. There are puppet shows everywhere and men on street corners sellin' drawings. William and Maria's fame grows by the day, while the rest of us are strugglin' to make sense of what has happen'd. Maria cannot be spoken of now without William, nor he without her. There was a time when that was all Maria wish'd for.
Samuel came early to collect me. It was only a short walk to the court, but it took an hour to get there. The old churchyard at the front of the building was full of people. They fill'd the gaps between the graves, and I was glad to get inside. Just after eight, the gaol cart came and the crowd ran forward. There was a fight to make a path through and I saw people hurt in the crush. William jump'd down from the cart. He wore a fine new coat and blue trousers, white neckerchief and silk stockings, and I felt sick and frighten'd when I saw him.
We were not let into the court, but kept in a side room until our turn came. I was glad to have Samuel with me. The Missis's bailiff is call'd for the prosecution, and look'd as troubl'd with the side he is on as I am. Mr Matthews was there. I heard him ask after Thomas Henry, but there was little talk among us. We waited, as frighten'd as if we were the ones on trial, and time went slowly. There was a fierce storm and the sound of rain on the umbrellas outside fill'd our little room.
They call'd Maria's stepmother first, and her fear as she was taken into the courtroom was plain. I pitied her, but her face told me there is to be no change of feelin' between us. I am judged by what I am, not who, and I am servant to the Corder family. I am here to speak for William, and that is what will be recorded. No one will know how my heart screams against it. The day pass'd, and I was not call'd. Samuel walk'd me back to my lodgin's and I must do the same tomorrow.
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8 August
I was call'd at eleven and led into the court. I saw they had a model of the barn, which made me shudder. And then the people, cramm'd into the seats, all starin' at me. I tried not to look at them or William, but the court was so quiet that I c'd hear heavy sighs comin' from where he sat. Then I saw Mr Curtis, sittin' with some other men. He smil'd at me, and I was glad to see him. William's man ask'd me if I had seen pistols in his room. I said yes. I told them William had left his mother's house two weeks before Old Michaelmas Day. Then he ask'd if William had ever behav'd badly towards me. I wanted him to ask about Maria, not me, so I c'd tell him how poorly she had been treated. But I had to tell the truth and say that William had always been kind to me. That was all. I was told to stand down.
They let me stay in the court after that. William's doctor was call'd next, then Samuel, but he had to wait because of the noise outside. I look'd up to a trapdoor in the ceilin' which had been open'd to allow air into the room. It was full o' faces, as folk were climbin' on the roof for a glimpse of William.
Mrs Martin was call'd back, and Maria's clothes were put in front of her â the handkerchief that she had worn round her neck, the earrings taken from her body, a fragment of her bonnet ribbon and the bosom of her chemise. Filthy, rotten and dragg'd from the dirt, kept in boxes for men to pore over and shown to the court like a sideshow. Samuel took my hand. It was so hot and pails of water were brought into the court for the crowd, but the stench of death rose from those clothes and fill'd the air. Maria's stepmother had to be help'd from the stand, and tears ran down Thomas Martin's face as his daughter's misery was laid out before him.
I must set down what happen'd next for the sake of my sanity. One of the surgeons held up a skull as he talk'd about wounds to Maria's face, and I knew that the skull which now turn'd its dreadful stare on us had once been my friend. The surgeon walk'd towards the jury, Maria's skull in one hand, William's sword in the other. I scream'd, and all eyes turn'd to me. That is the last I remember. Samuel told me later what the verdict was, and that William will hang on Monday, but I know what I have seen today will haunt me for the rest of my life.