The Conviction of Cora Burns Read online

  ‘Would that be all, sir?’

  She knew that it wouldn’t. The ticking off would start any second now, and then the good riddance. But the master was so quiet that she looked up again. His gaze was on her, scrutinising.

  ‘Come forward again, closer to the bed…’

  She took a half a step.

  ‘… and whilst I pour my tea, do me the favour of looking at this chart.’

  He leaned forward across the tray and held out a stiff sheet of pasteboard. Disconcerted by his mildness, Cora took it. On the left side of the sheet, words were listed in a column. Each described a character or temperament: Sulky, Fretful, Proud, Fiery. And each temper was joined by a red ink line to its opposite at the other side of the page: Sunny, Calm, Yielding, Timid.

  Mr Jerwood took a small bite from his toast and swallowed without chewing.

  ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘I can’t say, sir.’

  ‘Come now. You are not a dull person. I know that much of you.’

  ‘Opposites, sir. Of temper.’

  ‘There. Quite so.’

  He slurped a mouthful of tea then put down the cup and held out a sheet of thin, almost transparent parchment.

  ‘Be so good as to lay this sheet across the chart exactly.’

  Marked on the parchment in pencil were a row of crosses. When the corners of the parchment lined up exactly with those of the chart, the crosses fell upon the red ink lines. All of them were closer to the right-hand column, with the more agreeable traits.

  ‘Can you imagine a person with this sort of character? Does it belong to anyone you might know?’

  ‘Sir, I… I don’t know what you mean, sir.’

  ‘Violet perhaps?’

  ‘No. Not Violet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Her temper changes. Sometimes she is gay and lively, and other times solemn and…’

  ‘And…?’

  Cora could not bring herself to say rude and haughty. ‘Silent.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So I couldn’t rightly put just one cross on each line for Violet. There would have to be two.’

  Mr Jerwood blinked. ‘Two?’

  ‘Yes. Sir.’

  He put down his teacup and, with precise movements that made very little scraping or clinking, he removed the lid from the sugar bowl, lifted out a lump with the tongs, and stirred it into his tea.

  ‘And what of yourself, Cora Burns? Where would the crosses lie upon your own chart of temper? To the left or to the right? More agreeable than these here, or less so?’

  For the sake of appearance, Cora looked again at the descriptions on the left. Sulky, Fretful, Proud, Fiery. It might have been a list of distinguishing marks on her criminal record. But the master must have formed his own opinion of her character by now. Why should he care what she thought of herself?

  ‘In the middle, perhaps.’

  ‘For every pair of tempers?

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Jerwood took a sip of the sweetened tea and turned to Cora with a gaze like granite.

  ‘I think that you owe me a little more than that, Cora Burns. I have, after all, employed you in circumstances which few others would countenance. And I am prepared to overlook certain misdemeanours, even theft and assault, which most employers would hold to be heinous. All I ask in return is a little transparency about your own circumstances.’

  For a second, Cora’s muscles seemed to dilute, but then she dug her fingernails into her palms and a pulse of heat flowed through her.

  ‘I wanted only to get back what was rightly mine. Sir.’

  Mr Jerwood smiled with one side of his mouth and then nodded. ‘Steal it, you mean?’

  Cora squeezed her fists and the nails dug deeper. She looked at the floor. If she saw the master’s self-satisfied smile, she couldn’t be answerable for what those fists might do. He did not seem to want a response.

  ‘I think we might place your temper closer to the left side of the chart. And perhaps you would indulge me by revealing whether your character has always been as it is now? Or have you changed according to the experiences of your life?’

  ‘How could I know?’

  ‘Well, if you think back to your childhood – in the Union workhouse, wasn’t it – was your temper then as fiery as it seems now?’

  Cora returned a look as hard and unblinking as his own. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So we might say that your temper has been passed to you, unchanged, from Mary Burns. Or indeed, from Mr Burns.’

  ‘Who?’

  The word was out of Cora’s mouth before she could stop it but she instantly saw the stupidity of her question. The smugness of the master’s expression made her want to lunge for the silver teapot and bring it down, scalding, on to his head. Instead she stood frozen and waited for his reply.

  ‘Why, Mr Burns, your mother’s husband, of course. Your father.’

  an empty egg

  Violet did not look up as Cora came into the library for the breakfast tray. Cora waited by the door, watching the girl scrape out the last slips of white from the shell and spoon them hungrily into her mouth. Violet closed one eye then lifted the empty egg from its silver cup and peered inside it. She seemed entirely unlike the stiff, wary child of yesterday. Perhaps once she noticed Cora, the stony watchfulness would return.

  But as she lowered the eggshell and opened both eyes, Violet beamed.

  ‘Cora!’ She jumped off the upholstered stool, an orange drip of yolk on her chin. ‘Have you ever been to the Free Library?’

  Cora blinked. ‘No, miss.’

  ‘Oh! You should go. The central reference hall is the biggest room you could possibly imagine. It would make your mouth gape. Like it is now.’

  Violet put her hand over her own mouth and giggled. Cora tried to straighten her expression as she picked up the tray.

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s open on a Sunday, miss.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  Violet bounced up and reached out to the breakfast things in Cora’s hands, turning over the hollowed-out eggshell in the small cup so that it appeared whole and uneaten. There was fresh colour in the girl’s cheeks and a new lightness in her step.

  ‘You are looking better, Miss Violet.’

  ‘Better than what?’

  ‘Better than yesterday.’

  ‘Did I see you yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. I brought you your egg.’

  Violet frowned. ‘I think you are mistaken.’

  ‘Mistaken? No. I brought you an egg for your high tea.’

  ‘Perhaps you are unwell, Cora. You do look a bit peaky.’

  Cora gave the child a sideways glance as she turned for the door. How could she have forgotten that Cora had brought her tea last night? Had she been in some sort of stupor? Perhaps Mrs Dix had mixed up the milks and given Violet a draught of chloral intended for the missus. But as she looked, Cora saw that Violet’s eyes once again contained identically sized discs of clear blue.

  ‘Your eye is healed.’

  ‘My eye?’ Violet laughed. ‘You do say the funniest things, Cora.’ She began to rock back and forth on her heels with a mischievous look. ‘I wonder what you’d say if I told you what else I did yesterday.’

  Cora shrugged. ‘Depends what it was.’

  Throwing a quick look at the bookshelves, Violet lowered her voice almost to a whisper. ‘Well, it’s sort of a secret.’

  She reached out her arm and beckoned Cora towards her with a theatrical curl of her forefinger. As Cora put down the tray, she felt sure that the master was listening behind the books. Violet stepped on to the stool so that their faces were level and put her mouth to Cora’s ear, cupping it with her hand. Her breath was hot and faintly eggy.

  ‘Alice has gone to the Gazette.’
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  Cora pulled her head away. ‘What?’

  Violet put a taut finger to her lips then whispered again in Cora’s ear. ‘I delivered the sketch myself with a letter in my best handwriting.’

  ‘Lord in heaven.’

  ‘Are you not pleased?’

  ‘What did the letter say?’

  ‘It asked if they would publish an advertisement free of charge for a respectable but poor child seeking her long-lost sister.’

  ‘What name did you give for a reply?’

  ‘My own. “Miss V Poole, The Larches, Spark Hill”.’

  Cora closed her eyes.

  Violet whispered louder. ‘It was done only to help you. I thought we had agreed.’

  ‘I did not expect it to happen.’

  Although Cora had, miraculously, kept her position here despite yesterday’s outbursts, she’d no doubt that from now on any small misdemeanour would be enough to make her lose it. Becoming over-familiar with Miss Violet and causing the child’s name and directions to be printed in the press for anyone to see, was more than enough reason to be dismissed.

  Violet stepped back and the colour dropped from her face. Then she whispered again, her breath brushing Cora’s ear.

  ‘Did I do wrong? Will you forgive me?’

  Cora sighed and could not summon the energy for anger. And anyway, perhaps it would come to nothing. It was far-fetched to imagine that a newspaper would print an advertisement that was not paid for.

  ‘Don’t think on it. ’Tis done now. And I doubt anyone will respond.’

  Violet’s eyes glazed with tears. ‘Are you not pleased at all, Cora?’

  The child’s heartfelt look made Cora suddenly sigh. Her voice softened. ‘It was a clever idea, Violet. I’m obliged to you.’

  Again Violet beamed. Cora thought of the master’s chart of temper and how easily any person’s mood might swing from one side to the other. How might Samuel or Ellen describe her own temperament? Cold-hearted, vicious, deranged? She had no real idea of how she might define herself.

  Cora bent for the tray and Violet jumped down from the stool.

  ‘Don’t go yet, Cora. I’m supposed to amuse myself in here all morning.’

  ‘I could lay the fire, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh yes. And maybe you could help me with my still lifes again.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  But Violet had already rushed to the what-not and was opening a drawer. She brought her sketchbook to the cabinet and sank down in front of the glass shelves, the white pages open on her lap.

  ‘Here. I can show you my medallion sketches against the real things and you can tell me how true they are.’

  Violet pulled forward the inlaid medallion box and flipped open the lid. Cora gave a start. Here, suddenly, was a chance to examine the collection. She knelt beside Violet. A glinting bronze disc was already inside the child’s cupped hand.

  ‘Look. Here’s the boat on the Bosphorus. Do you think I made the oars long enough in my drawing?’

  But Cora’s gaze fixed on the line of randomly arranged capitals at the bottom of the coins. ‘How do you work out the years from the letters?’

  ‘Don’t you know your Roman numerals?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you not seen them on grand buildings in town? I can work them out perfectly now.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘M for a thousand, D for five hundred, and so on. Here, like on this ship medallion; MD then three CCCs that’s the century, eighteen hundred, then LXXIV for seventy-four.’

  ‘Seventy-four? So the one goes before the five to subtract it.’

  ‘Exactly! You are clever, Cora. It took me ages to get the hang of that.’

  The medallions seemed to shine brighter. Maybe Susan Gill had polished them with something more delicate than brick dust. Cora took the ship medallion from Violet and laid it on her palm. It had a familiar length and thickness although heavy. She turned it over. The back was as smooth and empty as her half-medal except, at the top rim, there was a neat band of capitals: W.TONKS&SONS. It was a maker’s mark. A cold shiver passed down Cora’s back.

  Pushing the medallion back into its velvet roundel, she stood up. ‘I need to get a bucket of coal.’

  Violet grabbed hold of her skirt. ‘Don’t go, Cora. You haven’t compared my sketches with the medallions yet.’

  ‘I’ll be back presently.’

  Once inside the coal-house, Cora made sure there was no sign of Ellen or the outdoor men, then she stood with her back to the opening and undid the two top buttons of her bodice. The letters at the base of the half-medal made instant sense: MDCCCLXI. 1861. But the cut through the middle had sliced almost into the last I. Perhaps originally the whole coin showed more numerals. Perhaps another I, or a V. The coin might actually show a full date of 1862 or 1863. Or 1864.

  Cora turned her half-medal over. She had not cleaned the reverse as thoroughly as the decorated front but apart from the hole for the twine, there was nothing to see on the plain half-moon of metal. If it had been made by W Tonks and Sons, his mark would surely be there as it was on the medallions in the library. Cora breathed out. Just because the master’s collection was made by someone else did not mean that her own was not from Salt & Co. Perhaps this sort of coin was a common product amongst Birmingham’s many metalworkers.

  Then, as her eyes adjusted to the light in the dirty lean-to, she noticed a chip on the reverse of the half-medal near the top of the point. Cora spat gently on the metal and rubbed it with her apron. She had never before noticed this blemish on the back, or perhaps she’d just discounted it as a slip of the saw when the medal was cut in two. But now that she’d seen another mark so similar she realised that she had been wrong. Because the mark was not an accidental dent, nor the chip from a saw, it was a slightly severed but perfectly crafted W.

  Eighteen

  1881

  the cut

  Mrs Catch said the asylum wasn’t far from the Union house. You could just about see it from the gatehouse. Cora followed her along the big corridor from the dormitory, past the women’s receiving ward and into the porters’ lodge. There, they told Cora to write her name on a piece of paper. As she wrote, her eyes flickered over a list of all the clothes that she was wearing and the others in her bundle right down to the hanky.

  Then Mrs Catch held out a brown envelope. ‘Cora Burns’ was written on it in spidery faded ink.

  ‘Here are your own things.’

  Cora blinked. ‘What things?’

  ‘From when you were admitted.’

  Cora shook her head. ‘I’ve always been here.’

  ‘No. You came as a babe in arms.’ Mrs Catch glanced down at the ledger. ‘Twenty-third of June 1865. Brought by a wardress.’

  Cora had no notion of what a wardress might be but would not give Mrs Catch the satisfaction of asking. The flap on the envelope was not sealed and she lifted it to see a piece of stiff paper furred along the folds. Mrs Catch tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘Come now, don’t dither. Put it safely in your bundle.’

  They went outside into the gatehouse archway where whitewashed columns separated the covered pavement from the cartway. Even though it was Sunday, a line of vagrants, men and women, stood patiently by the receiving door. Cora had only ever seen the casuals in their workhouse clothes. She couldn’t help staring at the filthy rags they wore on this side of the gatehouse. One old man’s white belly flashed through a rip in the greasy blanket he had wrapped around himself. Cora looked away in case she saw more.

  Mrs Catch walked briskly into the swirl of crisp air then stopped by the railings and pointed towards the cut. In the distance, pointed brick gables jutted out of bare trees.

  ‘Follow the canal until you see an entranceway. The sign is quite clear. It will not take you long.’ The railing g
ate squeaked open. ‘Off you go then. And don’t speak to anyone until you get there.’

  Mrs Catch had already turned her back. The black frill on her tall bonnet quivered as she strode back to the archway.

  Weak sunlight silvered the puddles on the empty road. Cora began to walk, her feet in time with a muffled banging somewhere inside the boiler-works across the way. She tried to feel hopeful. When Mrs Catch had come to the dormitory after chapel and told her to gather her things, Cora had done her best to make out that she didn’t care one way or another. But she knew that this meant that she was going, finally, to a situation. She seemed to have waited for this day longer than any of the other girls and should have been giddy to get away at long last, but the notion of walking alone out of the gatehouse scrambled her stomach.

  She’d hardly ever been out. Some years ago, the workhouse foundlings and orphans had performed in an Easter tableau at St Philip’s Church and she’d been a handmaiden, whatever that was. And last October, in the gilded banqueting hall of the new Council House, she’d been one of the hundred pauper children given fruit punch and a pie. On each occasion, the gaggle of chattering workhouse kids cocooned her so tightly that she hardly noticed the outside world.

  The road narrowed on to a bridge and Cora stopped to look at the cut. A hard breeze funnelled off the water. Both ways, the canal was empty of barge boats; towards the town, the waterway curved out of sight into crammed rows of grey houses and slender belching chimneys. In the other direction, it followed a straight course alongside an open field. Beyond that, the long building with fancy brickwork must be the asylum. And looming over its pointed red gables was the black roofline of the gaol.

  A muddy trail dropped from the bridge to the towing path and Cora stopped at the edge of the water. If she was to do what she’d been told, she’d turn along the field, up the tree-lined drive to the asylum and into a life she could imagine very well. There’d be wages and a day off but it would be the same washerwoman drudgery they’d been skilling her for at the Union house, except for the longer hours and the fouler sheets.