Nancy Carson - The Dressmaker’s Daughter

MAZE

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Previously published as Eve’s Daughter by Hodder and Stoughton 2002

Copyright © Nancy Carson 2015

Cover images © Kateryna Yakovlieva/ Shutterstock 2015

Cover design © Lizzie Gardner

Nancy Carson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780008134815

Version: 2015–04–23

Contents

Cover

Title Page The Dressmaker’s Daughter Nancy Carson

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

About the Author

About the Publisher

When he was alive many decent folk had wished him dead. Now, Isaac Bishop lay on his back, silent, unmoving, at last obliging them. His head was a gory mess of dark, red blood, drying, matted into his grey hair. The dented, old bowler hat he wore for work, Tom Dando had placed appropriately on his crippled chest like a black cairn. Elderly Doctor Clark had been summoned to the scene of the accident to attend Isaac as he lay in a heap at the crossroads where two public houses and the Bethel Chapel outfaced each other. And some would say it was poetic justice, profoundly ironic, that being hurled against the stout iron railings of the chapel should have ensured Isaac’s death.

Tom Dando pushed Isaac homewards on a squeaking handcart the greengrocer had lent, keeping behind the doctor, who headed the procession through the narrow terraced streets on his antiquated dog-cart. A growing band of morbidly inquisitive children drew up the rear in instinctive silence.

Tom Dando had always felt obliged to make sure that Isaac, his cousin and workmate, got home if they’d been drinking together; for Eve’s sake. Usually, the fool ended up draped across somebody’s wheelbarrow, incapable of remaining upright, comatose, snuffling contentedly like God’s dog. Tom regretted making that promise to Eve all those years ago. He would happily have left Isaac anywhere, at any time, to sort out his own salvation, for he respected Isaac even less than everybody else did. At least this time would be the last, Tom pondered, not without some satisfaction.

When they arrived at the house, the doctor insisted on breaking the news to Eve himself, and to Lizzie, Isaac’s doting youngest daughter. He’d had greater experience of such things. He knew how best to convey news of sudden death. And he would do it without Tom’s help, despite Tom’s assertion that it might be better coming from him. So Doctor Clark hobbled up the entry alone. Holding on to his hat with cantankerous defiance lest the ferocious March wind took it, he braced himself for the barrage of grief he imagined would ensue.

Tom waited apprehensively in the horse road with the hushed entourage, watching for Eve. A minute or two later she scurried down the entry, already pale and in a daze. Young Lizzie, equally bewildered, clutched her mother’s billowing, long skirt. Wife and daughter stopped by the handcart and remained still, like two shrubs frozen in midwinter. They stared incredulously at the bloody corpse that had been husband to one and father to the other, while the growing crowd of onlookers shuffled in respectful silence, waiting for somebody to speak.

First to do so was Tom. ‘Eve, my flower, I’m that sorry.’ Eve instinctively cupped her right hand to her better ear and leaned towards him. ‘Beccy Crump witnessed it all. I knew nothin’ about it till they fetched me out o’ the Loving Lamb. Did the doctor tell yer as it was Jack Clancey’s hoss what bolted and smashed him into the railin’s at the Bethel?’

Eve nodded, sighing gravely. ‘He told me … But does Jack Clancey know?’

‘He knows now. He was in The Four Ways having a drink. Sammy Hudson fetched him out.’

‘And what did he say, Tom? Did he say anything?’

Tom sighed, not knowing whether he should tell Eve what Jack had said. But he’d never tried to hide anything from her before, and now would be an inappropriate time to begin. ‘He said as how sorry he was. That he’d pay you his respects later … But he said as he wouldn’t grieve over Isaac …’

‘Like as not.’ Eve looked at her husband’s broken corpse and shook her head. ‘Best bring him in the house, Tom. I’ll see if I can open the front door.’

A few seconds later, they could hear the key turning inside, and reluctant bolts being coaxed to slide on their layers of rust. It seemed to Eve that the only times this door was opened was to let a coffin out … or a corpse in.

Motionless, Lizzie looked on at her poor father, at first unable to accept that he was dead; that the man lying on the handcart was no longer the father she knew and adored, but just a heap of dead flesh and broken bones. She drifted behind the random cortege as it contrived to station his body in the house, her adolescent mind in turmoil. She wanted to cry, but she dare not yet, not while there was a chance that this was simply some terrible nightmare from which she would be released in a minute or two.

But this was no nightmare. It was happening now.

People were beginning to speak more freely; quietly giving instructions to each other on how best to manoeuvre the handcart; to shift the rag-filled stocking that kept the draught out; for somebody to put their foot on the oil-cloth to hold it down; to prise the door open wider. But the handcart could not go through the door. Tom and the doctor would have to carry poor Isaac.