Ruth Warburton - Witch Hunt

‘Wait here,’ she said haughtily, and shut the door in Rosa’s face. When she opened it again it was with a slightly sour expression. ‘You’d better come this way.’

Rosa followed her down the hallway into the drawing room, where Clemency was sitting on an overstuffed sofa. She had a needle and thread in her hand, but she flung down the embroidery hoop at the sight of Rosa and hurried across the silk Turkey rug with her hands outstretched.

‘Rosa! My God, what’s happened to you? That’s all right, Millie,’ she added to the maid. ‘You can go.’ As the girl withdrew reluctantly, she turned back to Rosa. ‘When Millie said there was a shabby woman at the door with your card I didn’t know what to think. Rosa, are you all right?’

‘No.’ Her chin began to wobble at the sight of Clemency, so normal and so concerned. ‘No, I’m not all right. Oh, Clemency, we’re in such trouble – I didn’t know where to turn.’

‘We?’ Clemency took Rosa’s hand and tried to lead her across to an armchair. ‘Who’s “we”? Sit down, for pity’s sake, Rosa. I’ll call for tea.’

‘No, I can’t stay, and I can’t sit, I’ll ruin your chair.’

‘Damn the chair!’ Clemency said. Her plump, comfortable face was anxious. ‘Rosa, please tell me what’s happened? Your dress – it’s all burnt! Where’s your hat? And where in heaven’s name did you get that horrible shawl? It looks like a dishrag!’

‘It was Sebastian—’ Rosa began, but she couldn’t finish. Suddenly the strain, not just of the night, but of the past days and weeks, seemed to well up inside her and she found she was sobbing. Clemency pushed her to a chair and forced her to sit, and somehow Rosa found the whole tale spilling out – how she had agreed to marry Sebastian against her better judgement, in spite of her growing fear of him, and how Luke had caught her crying in the stable after she had become engaged, and they had ended up kissing.

‘Sebastian walked in on us,’ she said, wiping her nose with her sleeve. Nothing could make the dress more soiled than it already was. ‘And, oh, Clemency, he was so angry. He . . . he beat me. And he must have beat Luke, although I didn’t see that.’

Clemency said nothing, but Rosa could see the thoughts flitting across her face, her sympathy for Rosa mixed with revulsion at the idea of kissing an outwith and a servant, and with the thought that any man of pride might have lashed out if he caught his new fiancée in the arms of a stable-hand.

‘I thought he would break it off,’ Rosa continued, her voice low and hoarse. ‘The engagement. But he didn’t . And I realized that somehow the whole episode had only made him want me more. I never thought a man would want a woman who didn’t love him, but, oh, Clemmie – it was as if the more I hated him, the more he was excited by it, and the more he had to have me. Does this make any kind of sense to you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Clemency said. Her blue eyes were fixed on Rosa, her rosebud lips were tight, reserving judgement. ‘Perhaps. Some men are creatures of strange tastes, that much I know, and I can see that perhaps your . . . indiscretion , let’s call it – might have hurt his pride and made him more determined to hold on to you. But that doesn’t explain all this . . . What happened with your dress?’

‘Luke was turned off, when we got back to London, of course,’ Rosa gulped, and Clemency nodded.

‘Of course.’

‘I was trapped. If I broke it off with Sebastian he would expose me, and worse, he would very probably take his revenge on Luke. And I felt so guilty – it seemed to me that if Sebastian were prepared to forgive me, shouldn’t I be able to forgive him ? So I tried to carry on, I tried to be a good fiancée and take an interest in his family’s work and their charitable concerns. So I went to the East End, to his factory, and – oh, Clemency, what I found . . .’ She broke off, reliving again the horror of those dimly lit rooms, glowing with the ghostly luminescence of the phosphorus, and the men and women and children with their faces eaten away by the chemicals. She remembered the smell of it – flesh and bone liquefying into a stinking, oozing putrefaction. ‘They were dying, Clemmie. The outwith workers. There was no way they could have stayed in that poisonous place willingly. They were drugged with magic – chained there – like slaves.’

Clemency bit her lip. Her face was very still, very serious.

‘So what did you do?’

‘I tried to persuade them to leave, but they wouldn’t listen to me. The charms were too strong – I don’t know how, but they were like iron, far stronger than I could break. I pleaded but they just ignored me and carried on. And then I recognized one of the workers – a girl. She was a friend of Luke’s. And I thought if I went and got him, he might be able to help, she might listen to him , if not me. But . . . ’ She stopped.

This was the one part she must not tell Clemency. She could betray her own secrets, but not Luke’s. Luke’s identity as one of the Malleus Maleficorum must remain secret at all costs, even from Clemency, or they were both dead. Clemency would never agree to help them if she knew. And there was also the cold immutability of a fact that she had not yet quite faced: Luke had been tasked to kill her and, though his nerve had failed him at the last moment, he had tried to carry that task out. She did not know if she would ever be able to forget the sight of him raising the hammer above his head, the hate in his eyes . . .

‘Yes?’ Clemency prodded. Rosa took a breath, picking her way carefully between the truth and the omissions.

‘He didn’t remember me. I took his memories when he went away, and he no longer knew who I was. So I returned alone and confronted Sebastian – to try to make him lift the spells.’

‘It didn’t work,’ Clemency said, in confirmation rather than question.

‘No. And he shut me in the warehouse and set fire to it – I suppose to hide what he’d done, and perhaps because in that instant he realized that he had lost me, and he could not bear for that to happen.’

‘He locked you in?’ Clemency’s normally rosy face was pale, and her wide blue eyes were even wider than usual. ‘He left you to die ?’

Rosa nodded.

‘Yes, but Luke must have remembered something, because he came after me in the end, and helped me escape. But now, Clemmie, you must help us. We have to leave London, before Sebastian finds us.’

‘Oh God, Rosa.’ Clemency stood and began pacing the Turkey rug back and forth, back and forth. ‘What can I do? I really think – surely your mother—’

‘Mama?’ Rosa knew the bitterness in her voice was unpleasant, but she couldn’t hide it. ‘Ha. She’s so afraid of losing Sebastian’s money – she’d sell me to him in an instant. She’d sell herself even, I think.’

‘But, darling, think!’ Clemency’s plump comfortable face was contorted with distress. ‘Think what you’re saying . . . You’re proposing – what? To run away with – with this stable-hand ? You’ll be ruined! And how will you live? Go home, please, darling.’

‘Clemmie, listen to me. Sebastian Knyvet tried to kill me. Do you understand what I’m saying? I think he is mad. I saw it before, but never so clearly until that night in the factory. I cannot go home – even if Mama and Alexis believed me, Sebastian would know I was there. I must get away before he finds me – before he kills us both.’ Or worse , she added silently in her head. To be married to Sebastian, that could be a living death in itself.

‘But . . .’ Clemency wound her fingers in her handkerchief until they were bloodless, and then released them. ‘But Philip has the carriage. What can I do?’