The Conviction of Cora Burns Read online

‘Did you see the print? I hope its position in our display meets with your approval.’

  ‘I want you to take it out.’

  His hands dropped to his sides. ‘Would you rather it was mounted in a frame, or placed further to the front?’

  ‘No. I don’t want it on display at all.’

  ‘But I have made special provisions. Let me show you.’ He pulled back the curtain and reached into the window display, then laid Cora’s likeness on the glass counter. ‘It is a fine image. Several customers have commented. Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I look hard as a steel pin.’

  She realised as she spoke that she must look like that now.

  But Alfred smiled. ‘Steel can be beautiful.’ He coloured slightly and reached below the counter to pull out a hard-bound notebook. ‘You have not yet found your sister?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, why not leave your portrait on display? It can do no harm. Look, I wrote down your particulars in our day-book.’

  He opened it for her to see. The ruled lines were covered in a precise shrunken hand. Standing apart from the dates and messages was an entry in red; Window display bottom right – details of any person enquiring regarding the identity of the sitter to be noted and kept for Miss C Burns c/o The Larches, Spark Hill. A stretch of the page below was ruled off, presumably to record the details of anyone who might enquire. But the space was blank.

  Cora shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t wish my employer to see my face in your window. And I have found another way to look for my sister.’

  ‘I see. Would you care to keep the portrait then? Without charge.’

  ‘Not looking like that.’

  ‘I cannot agree with your opinion of yourself. In fact, I have you in mind as a model.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To sit for some private shots, including stereographic images like those I showed you last week. It’s a commercial venture on behalf of a friend.’

  Cora took a step away from the counter. One of those filthy pictures, he must mean. Like father, like son.

  ‘Well, you can wash that idea out of your dirty mind with soap.’

  The colour bleached from Alfred’s face. ‘No, no, you misunderstand me. Nothing like that, I promise.’

  Cora reached for the door handle but Alfred jumped around the counter and put a hand on her arm.

  ‘Please, Miss Burns, you must believe me. This is an entirely respectable venture for an engineering works at Coventry. They have made a breakthrough which will change the world and they have asked me to help them tell the world about it.’

  ‘What’s that to me?’

  Cora wondered why she had not already shaken her arm free.

  ‘Please, Miss Burns, if you have time, allow me to show you the invention.’

  ‘In here?’

  ‘Not far off. My Coventry friend will pay handsomely for photographic assistance. If you would agree to pose, I can give you at least a guinea for an hour or two of your time.’

  Her eyes narrowed. A guinea. That made it sound even more likely to be something obscene, especially if he was wanting to take her to an out-of-the-way place. Alfred flushed as he finally took his hand from her arm. His eyes were level with hers. Cora had no doubt that if there was any funny business she would easily fight him off.

  ‘All right.’

  He pushed the portrait of Cora into a drawer, grabbed his hat from a shelf and locked the shop door behind them. Feathers bobbed on his Tyrolean hat as they walked into the swirling air. The traffic was sparse but when they crossed towards Union Street, he put his arm out behind her as a shield against a trotting cab. Cora imagined Samuel in town with her and felt a twinge of guilt. Before she’d set off from The Larches, she’d made sure that he was busy in the stableyard and wouldn’t see her hurrying down the drive. It didn’t seem likely that Samuel would go alone to the Oyster Rooms but she couldn’t help scanning the scattered figures along the street for his broad outline.

  ‘Did you have an easy journey from Spark Hill?’

  ‘I came on the steam tram.’

  ‘Ah yes. There’s a new stop not far from Mr Jerwood’s.’

  ‘Do you know his house?’

  ‘I have been once, to deliver his Dallmeyer. A top-notch device.’

  Cora thought of the polished brass bindings and shiny dark wood on Mr Jerwood’s camera. She slid a look sideways at Alfred.

  ‘What is a composite?’

  ‘A composite photograph, do you mean?’

  She’d said it wrong and now wished she hadn’t said it at all.

  ‘Interesting that you have heard of it. I’d say it’s an excessively fiddly process for blending many likenesses into one. I’ve heard exaggerated claims for the possibilities of the technique but can’t see that it’s anything more than a fad myself.’

  ‘What sort of possibilities?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Like discovering a person’s true racial origins, or pinpointing a criminal. A lot of tosh, I’d say.’

  Cora felt a flutter of understanding, and then unease.

  Alfred’s eyes widened. ‘Is that Jerwood’s line? Composites? Oh dear. Don’t tell him what I said about them, will you?’

  ‘As if!’

  Cora laughed then Alfred caught her eye and laughed too. A sour-sweet memory of Jimmy flashed across her mind but she blinked it away.

  Alfred’s hand touched the small of her back. ‘Oops. Nearly missed our turning.’

  They entered a covered brick passageway and then a yard, open to the sky, that backed on to a hotel. With a key, Alfred opened a lean-to outhouse that was stacked with stepladders, buckets and porters’ trolleys. The air smelled of paint and ash. Alfred took hold of a protective sheet and whipped it into the air.

  ‘Here it is.’

  Cora shrugged. ‘A bicycle?’

  ‘No, the Rover Safety Bicycle! Believe me, this is the future of travel. It has covered a hundred miles in just seven hours!’

  The bicycle certainly looked different to an ordinary high-wheeler. Both wheels were the same size and the seat was low enough for a cyclist to keep his feet comfortably on the ground whilst sitting down. The pedals were connected not to the front wheel but to a cogged chain at the rear.

  Alfred rubbed a white hand across his sandy beard. ‘My friend at the factory thinks that ladies should be able to ride this type of bicycle almost as easily as men. That, of course, doubles his potential for sales. So he wishes to circulate far and wide pictures of ladies using the bicycle. Stereoscopic images as well as hand-drawn advertisements.’

  ‘You want me to ride it?’

  Alfred’s eyes gleamed. ‘I could photograph you just sitting on it. But if I could get a shot of you in motion it would be, well, it would be an absolute first. Here, come and sit on the saddle.’

  ‘All right.’

  Cora couldn’t see how there’d be any harm in it but as she took hold of the handles and lifted her leg awkwardly across the bar, her skirt became stuck above her knees. Dragging it down, she managed to sit on the moulded seat whilst balancing on the toecaps of her boots. The complicated frame and rubber wheels beneath her seemed to fidget with the possibility of speed.

  ‘I’ll never be able to ride it.’

  ‘Whyever not? I managed all right. It just takes a bit of determination, and I think I can safely say, from what I’ve already seen of you, that grit is not something you’re short of.’

  another half

  Cora whacked harder with the plaited cane and puffs of dirt billowed from the carpet on to wilted wet grass. She stopped to rub the ache at the back of her neck and looked at the house. Her place here was not bad; better in fact than most she could imagine. The master’s attention was unnerving but d
id not seem malicious and the missus’s behaviour no more queer than what had come to seem normal at the asylum. The air was more wholesome and the food more plentiful than she’d ever known. It wouldn’t do to lose this position. And as long as the other servants didn’t find out where she’d come from, she’d stick with it for as long as she could.

  Cora dragged the carpet from the line and dug her knuckles into the stiff woollen tufts as she rolled it up. In the front hall, she stood for a moment with the carpet roll on her shoulder and listened at the dining room door before knocking. There was no response but as Cora heaved the carpet to the hearth, Violet looked up from the table, startled. She was wearing the green day dress; her hair woven as usual into a plait. Cora started to smile, but the girl jerked her head back down to the sketchbook. A stick of charcoal lay beside it and in front of her, on the tablecloth, four dull brown apples were piled into a pyramid. The page was blank.

  The breakfast things had been cleared away but the dining room air was still stewed with bacon fat. As she unrolled the carpet by the fireplace, Cora could see Violet’s profile, pale and motionless against the dark wallpaper. Cora kept her voice low enough not to be heard in the hall.

  ‘Do you still have the sketch of Alice?’

  Violet was silent.

  ‘You know, for the Birmingham Gazette? Because I’m not sure now that it would be right to send it.’ She dropped to a whisper. ‘I don’t think it’s worth us getting into trouble over. Violet? Do you see?’

  For a short moment, the girl turned to her blank-eyed, then looked down at the charcoal. Cora gave a start. That brief look had been enough. Violet’s left eye was its normal blue, but the other eye was completely black. Cora darted a sideways look to check but there was no question. Violet’s eyes had become mismatched.

  ‘Are you unwell, Violet? Shall I fetch Mrs Dix?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Aye? She’d not heard Violet use that word before. And in her voice was the guttural undertone of the town.

  Cora straightened the carpet, wiped her hands on her apron and went to the door. Violet remained staring, not at her drawing nor the pile of apples, but at a tray of condiments on the sideboard. Cora’s hand stiffened with an urge to give Violet’s cheek a hard slap.

  Anger still pulsed as Cora climbed the back stairs. Violet had not only ignored her, she’d seemed to mock Cora by imitating her way of speaking. Rage simmered as Cora wondered whether her previous opinion of Violet had been entirely wrong. The girl had never before seemed haughty or spiteful but perhaps that was a clever act. Violet’s true nature might be not just mischievous but wicked. But Cora remembered the blackness in her eye and was suddenly unsure. Could Violet be ill? Perhaps she’d suffered a fall or a blow to the head and no one had realised.

  Cora knelt to the landing floor and folded back the faded woven runner. The floorboards beneath it were much darker than the surrounding wood. Behind the laboratory door, glass clinked. The master was in there, doing something peculiar no doubt, like measuring a rabbit’s ear or making a cabinet portrait of some hag in prison stripes. Perhaps this was Cora’s chance. If she knocked on the door and explained her concern about Violet looking poorly, she might at the same time show Mr Jerwood her half-medal and ask about his connection to Salt & Co.

  From the other side of the main stairs came an abrupt shout, high-pitched and agitated. Cora almost ignored it. She was becoming used to the asylum noises from the missus’s room. But then the door was flung open and Mrs Dix bolted across the landing to flatten herself, arms aloft, against the laboratory door. A rumpled white gap opened between her jacket and skirts as her fists banged on wood.

  The door opened. There was a dark smudge across the master’s brow and his wiry hair stuck out like uncombed wool.

  ‘Yes? What now?’

  Mrs Dix’s voice trembled. ‘You should come, sir. She has taken a bad turn.’

  Mr Jerwood shook his head. His jacket seemed wet with stains. ‘Can you not manage it with chloral?’

  ‘No, sir, she will not abide it today.’

  Cora crouched on the floor. Perhaps they had not noticed her. Or perhaps they did not care whether she was there or not. Then, from the mistress’s bedroom, came a noise like the howl of an animal in the night. Mrs Dix’s head jerked around and her face crumpled. With a loud sigh, the master side-stepped her and, licking each palm in turn, stroked his hair to pull the wayward tufts into place. Then he strode across the landing leaving the laboratory open. Mrs Dix followed him into the mistress’s room and closed the door.

  A caustic smell seeped from the laboratory. Cora crept to the threshold and peered at the disorder inside. The jars on the shelves were jumbled out of order; the species no longer logically arranged. Insects, lizards and birds mingled with a cat in mid-yowl. At the back, the body in the biggest jar of all was obscured by the others except for a tiny hand.

  The workbench was covered in tubes and apparatus. A thick slimy substance had spilled over a good part of the countertop. At the centre of the mess, an unsealed jar was half-filled with clear liquid. Floating inside, nose pointing towards air, was a stiff white rabbit with black patches on its ear and foot. Above it on the shelf, was the box labelled Composites 1884 –. Voices came from Mrs Jerwood’s room and then muffled wailing. Cora took a breath and stepped into the laboratory, pulling the door behind her.

  Taking care not to touch the spill that gave off a choking whiff of ammonia, she reached for the box of photographs. It was heavy and as she lowered it on to the floor, one end thumped against the linoleum. Cora stopped and listened for footsteps on the landing but heard only her own heartbeat.

  Quickly, she removed the pasteboard lid and began to flick through the likenesses. Most of the faces were men’s and boys’, but amongst the women’s were some she remembered from the exercise yard or the oakum room. All were in convict stripes. A few images seemed bland and blurry, but most of the faces whether angry or gormless, pock-marked or under-fed, were recognisably those of prisoners. The human rubbish of the town. And then came her own face. It fitted so snugly amongst the other criminals that she might have missed it. Turning the box to the light, Cora could almost feel the itch of that prison bonnet on her brow, the lumpiness of the stays on her breasts.

  She pulled the print out of the box with no idea for an excuse when Mr Jerwood discovered it gone and came asking. Now the prison likeness was in her hands, she could not bear for it to stay any longer in this house, or to exist at all. She folded it and stuffed it inside her bodice over the half-medal.

  As she went to replace the lid, Cora noticed the portrait behind the place in the box where her own had been and thought it might be a copy. The surly set of the mouth seemed a reflection of hers. But the brows were too dark and unruly, the eyes too inky. In fact, if Cora were to say who the face might resemble, other than herself, she could think of only one person – her employer, Thomas Jerwood.

  brambles

  Timothy slurped a saucer of tea and raised his eyes to the kitchen ceiling.

  ‘She’s in a paddy today, all right.’

  Cora looked up too. The gas mantle above the kitchen table shook with each thump from the continuing commotion in Mrs Jerwood’s bedroom. Timothy’s eyes twinkled above the brown slosh in the saucer.

  ‘Who’s this Annie she keeps yelling about?’

  Cora’s heart gave a hollow beat. She could imagine the queer look he’d give if she said that she was Annie, or at least that’s who the missus thought she was.

  Cook glanced up from a ball of pummelled dough. ‘Take no notice. It’s all nonsense.’

  But as Cook’s fists returned to kneading, she shot Cora a look seeming to suggest, nonsense or not, that subjects like this should be kept well away from Timothy. Another notch tightened on the unease in Cora’s chest.
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  Timothy dipped a bread crust into the saucer. ‘What was the missus like when she was in her right mind?’

  ‘When she used to get out of bed, you mean?’ Cook walloped the bread dough against the table. ‘It’s so long ago I can hardly remember.’

  ‘What does she fancy will befall her if she gets up?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not getting up that afears her. It’s falling out of bed. So she stays in it, barricaded with furniture and cushions to keep her safe.’

  Timothy chuckled and cast a sly look at Cora as he held out his empty teacup towards her.

  ‘I wish someone would barricade me in my bed. As long as my wife wasn’t in it with me.’

  Cora lifted the teapot. How easily she might slip the spout and gush scalding tea on to his hand, but she poured carefully and then put the pot down. Inside her bodice, the prison likeness buckled with a snap that she hoped no one else had heard.

  ‘I should get back outside to them carpets. You didn’t want me for anything else did you, Cook?’

  Raising a sticky hand into the air, Cook wiped her forearm across her brow.

  ‘Yes, Cora, take that tin bowl with you and see if you can find any brambles for our pie.’

  Timothy winked. ‘I’d look behind the stableyard if you want something juicy.’

  Cora’s tongue was fighting to be stuck out and perhaps if Cook hadn’t been there she’d have let it. But Timothy, she realised, might be more vexed by being ignored. She picked up the bowl without any notion of what a bramble might be but she was not about to give Timothy further chance for lewdness by asking.

  ‘Yes, Cook.’

  A squint of sunlight burnished the yellow grass alongside the outhouse path and old spiders’ webs matted the hedge around the bonfire. Cora crouched down beside the warm ash. A black twig still smouldered at the edge of the cinders and she poked it until a few embers throbbed into orange life. A handful of dead leaves brought up a billow of wood-smoke and then a leap of flame.

  Cora stood. As far as she could see, across the paddock and along the path to the glasshouse, nothing moved. Timothy was still supping tea in the house and she hadn’t seen Samuel since Saturday. Perhaps he was out on the pony trap.