Page 84 of Evidence of Evil
Her performance enabled him to breathe, to keep up with her. “He is clearly far fitter than I,” he said mildly, following closely on the doctor’s heels and watching closely for any attack from Murray, who waited at the horse’s head. Solomon hadn’t yet decided if Murray was the dupe or the active ally. After all, he had allowed himself to be overruled at the autopsy, if not on the lungs then on the spots on the eyelids.
“You go up first,” Laing instructed Solomon. “And I shall pass her to you.”
Solomon hesitated. He would be in the gig, with Murray in control of the horse, and Constance in Laing’s hands. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it all.
But Constance was already in Laing’s hold. Solomon could not challenge him.
“Of course,” he murmured, hooking the lantern to the side of the vehicle and then climbing in. His heart in his mouth, hereached for Constance as though he had no doubts whatsoever of Laing’s next move.
Laing surrendered her with no reluctance at all, and helped settle her comfortably on the bench. Solomon placed her sprained foot on the cushion, and Murray darted inside briefly to retrieve her forgotten boot.
“Thank you both so much,” Solomon said, shortening the reins. “We are in your debt. I’ll be sure to see horse and gig returned to you at dawn. Goodnight.”
He flicked the reins, and the old horse ambled off.
“Goodnight.” The voices of Constance and the doctors mingled with the sounds of horse and gig. Solomon was afraid to breathe until he heard the distant closing of the cottage door.
Constance sagged beside him. “Oh, thank God. Does he know we know? Is Murray covering for him?”
“I think he knows,” Solomon said grimly, trying to shake the old horse into an increase of pace. “Shall I drop you at The Willows before I go on to the village?”
“Absolutely not!” she exclaimed, making him smile in spite of everything. “Speed is of the essence now.”
As though she agreed, the old mare finally broke into a reluctant trot.
Which was when a light suddenly flew over their heads and dropped beneath the traces in a tinkling of glass. An instant later a sharp crack rent the air and Betsy screamed, trying to rear up, while flames licked up over the front of the gig.
Solomon dropped the reins and dived into Constance, hurling her with him into the road, just as another shot rang out.
*
Sarah had fallenasleep in her chair by the stove. She woke with a start to a loud bang. Disoriented, she didn’t know if it was a clapof thunder, a firework, or a gunshot. She had no idea of the time, but alarm set her struggling out of her chair.
The candle had burned down an inch or two—which was a waste, since she should have gone to bed and blown it out—but it couldn’t have been so very late. She just felt so very tired and groggy with this damned cough.
As another bang sounded, she staggered across to the cottage door. Definitely not thunder. Opening the door, she saw the flaring glow at once. It was further up the hill, on the road where nothing should have been able to burn. No one but poachers hunted in the middle of the night, and surely they would not risk shooting or burning…
But someonewasrisking it. With a spurt of angry shame, she knew she had stayed silent too long. The girl had been vile in many ways, but she hadn’t deserved to die. Killing was wrong, but once committed… Well, one might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. She couldn’t change that murder. And she was probably too late to stop this one, but she would try.
She didn’t even bother with a coat as she stormed across her little yard, seized the wheelbarrow, and put the shovel into it. Then, as fast as her stiff legs would carry her, she ran out into the road and charged up the hill.
*
Maule felt sick.That such things could happen in the world, that a woman was so reduced… And yet he was no blind, sheltered fool. He had always known. But these were things that happened to other females, not to women he knew, let alone to his wife.
And yet the world would blame her. In his heart, he knew it would take time before he did not. A single fall from grace, he could understand and forgive, although if he ever met the man who had so cynically seduced Elizabeth and left her to bear hershame and her child alone, he would probably beat him to a pulp.
That was different. Different from the three weeks when she had been unable to find shelter or to eat, and had finally sold her body on the streets for pennies.
Elizabeth’s words tore at him, and yet he still clutched her close, keeping his face hidden from her lest she should see his disgust, even while they talked and talked. He understood she had been left no other choice. There had been more than her own life at stake. There was her child, whom she had both hated and loved in those weeks, and yet whom she had fought so fiercely to preserve through her own degradation.
His whole being twisted with pity and anger for her pain, her fear, the awfulness of that time. So did hers. But she said, “I’m not the only one. Women are used and blamed and face impossible choices all the time. I could feel it killing me. I was ill and I thought I would die with my baby, despite everything I had done. If it had not been for Constance… She found me and took me to her house. Whatever it was, I thought it had to be better than the sick vileness my life had become.”
“Was it?” he whispered into her hair. His eyes were tight shut. He felt her nod.
“I didn’t quite believe it at first. She said a friend had told her about me. She gave me a comfortable bed, a room of my own, even though some of the girls shared. You know about her establishment—it is a very exclusive, extremely expensive brothel. The men she employs to protect the household are large, fierce, and decent. But not all the women are whores. Only those who choose to be. She trains others to be servants or teachers, or finds them employment in shops and the more decent factories. There is even a female accountant… And as the women move on, others come in. All the women on the street,even some of the reformers, know about her. Some of them try to shut her down, but her connections are too powerful.”
It sounded like a bizarre mixture of decadence and philanthropy that he could not quite appreciate.
