Chapter 1
It was nearing seven by the time Theo got home.
The sky was a muted grey, with the first faint stars appearing and the gentle bite of the changing season in the air.
She’d missed Arthur’s bedtime but would go up and tuck him in anyway.
And if Ralph were home . . . if Ralph were home she would claim to have been out for a walk, to have lost track of time.
That’s what Audrey was to have told him, if he arrived home ahead of her.
She tried not to think about the time she’d taken Arthur to meet Crudge: that Ralph had found it out, and she still didn’t know how.
So, when Betty, the parlour maid, opened the door with her bottom lip hanging and her eyes wide with fright, Theo blanched. The air emptied from her lungs. But he could not know, she told herself. He couldn’t possibly know.
‘Betty? What’s wrong?’ she whispered.
Betty swallowed before answering. ‘The master said to send you to him in his study, as soon as you’re back.’
‘He’s home?’
‘These two hours past, madam. He . . . he’s had a good deal of wine.’ She looked down, unable to meet Theo’s eye.
Head thumping, Theo took a second or two of stillness before walking along the hallway with the slow, resigned tread of the condemned. Perhaps this was better, she thought. Better to get it over with, and not wait weeks for him to spot the theft, and connect it to her.
She knocked, and pushed the door open.
Ralph was by the hearth, leaning against a mantlepiece cluttered with the gewgaws her mother had chosen, back when they were newlyweds. He had a glass of wine in one hand and the poker in the other, and was jabbing at the smouldering coals. Theo hung back by the door.
‘Ralph, I—’ The story about having been out for a long walk died on her lips.
He looked at her, and she was confused. He seemed calm, but not the kind of calm she could trust. His face was strangely slack, eyes liquid and huge.
‘What have you done with it?’ he said quietly.
Theo stared. As quickly and easily as that, he knew it all. Did he have spies, then? Despair swayed her like a strong wind.
Ralph didn’t blink. ‘Don’t make me ask you twice, Theo.’
‘I . . . I don’t—’
‘If you lie to me about this, I swear you will regret it.’
He put the poker down and came a few steps nearer.
Theo smelt the wine on him, and the particular tang of his sweat when he was in a violent mood.
All at once she was exhausted, and sorely tempted to surrender to whatever came next.
She hadn’t the energy to fight or scream.
But something was not normal about him. She wondered if he meant to kill her.
‘I saw you catching the bus in town this afternoon, with a basket over your arm. And Dr Fortescue saw you at the hospital, hurrying away. Where have you taken it?’
‘I . . . I buried it,’ Theo whispered.
‘You buried it?’
Ralph burst out laughing, and for a moment Theo thought he might believe her. He drained his wine in a single gulp.
‘I grant you, that’s just the sort of ridiculous, childish thing you might do,’ he said. ‘But your hands are awfully clean, Theo; your skirt and shoes also. And where is your shovel?’
‘I buried—’
‘Do not lie to me!’
He hurled his glass into the fire where it shattered and hissed, and came towards her.
‘What have you been plotting? Tell me!’
Theo said nothing.
‘Is it too much to ask that you be loyal to me?’ Ralph went on. ‘That you honour and obey me as you swore to do, before God?’
This was too much. ‘As you swore to cherish and protect me?’ she cried. ‘As you swore to keep yourself only unto me? As you swore that?’
Ralph’s eyes widened. ‘I need not justify myself to you. You are my wife, though you have never behaved as a wife should! And I will not be married to a shrew – a deceitful one at that. You will learn to respect me, if I must break every bone to teach you.’
‘You can break my bones, we both know that well enough.’ Her voice shook. ‘But I shan’t ever respect you. I know what you did, Ralph. I know what you did to Missy! And to Miss Breton. You preyed upon them!’
She was saying too much, but fear had derailed her and she couldn’t stop.
All thought of surrender vanished, leaving only the ringing clarity of the danger she was in.
His face darkened and he came towards her, unsteady on his feet.
He aimed a kick at a small table, and sent the wine decanter flying.
Theo darted out of the way, nearer to the fire.
‘Come here!’ Ralph turned sluggishly. ‘I will teach you . . . by God, Theo . . .’
The words sounded thick, almost slurred, and he lost his balance, lurching a step to one side. He was drunker than Theo had realised, and hope kindled – he might pass out; he might sleep it off, and forget what she’d said. What she’d done.
‘You will do as I say, Theo,’ he said.
Theo braced herself against the wall, ready to push away and run if he came closer.
The iron poker was now within her reach; her fingers itched to grab for it, but words Toby had written shot through her mind: Mrs Jeanie Absolom of Deptford – pushed beyond the limits of endurance – sent to the gallows.
She must do nothing to separate herself from Arthur.
Ralph stood swaying for a moment. The door cracked open behind him, and to Theo’s amazement Audrey’s face appeared, her eyes huge.
Theo gestured frantically for her to go, to close the door before Ralph noticed her, but Audrey was looking at Ralph, not at Theo.
The moment hung peculiarly. Theo was bewildered.
She didn’t understand why Ralph hadn’t hit her yet; why he hadn’t come and hauled at her wrists.
She didn’t understand why Audrey was hovering in the doorway, when all the staff knew to keep away when he was like this.
Ralph rubbed one hand over his face, like a man just waking from sleep.
He stared across at Theo with fury in his eyes, some deep turning force, but his body didn’t seem to be obeying him.
A thin line of drool snaked from the corner of his mouth, and hung, swinging, from his chin. Then, finally, he lurched forwards.