‘Oh, Iris,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’
I held up my hand in front of her, the lace fingers now covered in blood.
‘The pills,’ she said. ‘They are working at last.’ She held her hands to her middle, as if trying to ease some pain, and her body seemed to buckle, each breath now slow and shuddering.
‘No!’ I gasped. ‘We can stop it. Maybe if we can somehow bandage it, we can stop it!’ I knelt beside her and reached into her skirts, fumbling with the ties of her frilled petticoat and drawing it down over her legs and feet. Then I bunched up the petticoat and moved her legs apart, forcing the fabric between them and jamming it close to her body.
‘It will stop soon,’ I whispered. ‘I am sure it will.’
But it did not, and I held the petticoat in place until my elbow seized up and I could no longer feel the scratch of the bracken on my arms, the press of my hip bone on the hard ground nor my shivers from the morning’s chill.
Then she raised her head a little.
‘I am here for you,’ I said, and I realised that I was repeating my mother’s words again –this time the ones that she had spoken as she prised the sewing scissors from my hands and stared deep into my eyes. Now I realised how her words had helped me, so I said them again, just as my mother had: ‘I am here for you.’
She laid her head back down but she did not close her eyes and I thought she was looking at the sky and at the darkness that was starting to dissolve away into little wisps of black cloud streaked with dull green. There was still an orange glow over the wych elms, yet now I feared what would happen when it stopped – the plume of smoke that would follow, and the men that would be sent out over the common with their dogs.
I thought of Sir Howard’s anger and my mother’s shame, the disgrace that I had caused all over again – but found that I did not fear any of those things anymore. It was Iris that I was fearful for because to me she had always been the girl who had everything, and now she had so much to lose. I had long known that she risked her wealth, her dignity and her position in society, but I did not fear for these things now, because at that moment Iris still had her health and her life, although I did not know for how much longer.
‘I am here for you,’ I said again, but this time my voice was weaker.
* * *
She lay in the bracken, her knees bent to her chest and her arms clutching her middle, her white dress glowing in the low light. Her breaths were slow and her skin felt cold. Sometimes her whole body would clench and she would close her eyes and bite her lip, but the pain seemed to dull as quickly as it had come and she would slump back into the bracken again. She looked only to the sky – all that was left of the night were a few clouds, purplish and swollen like bruises – although I wondered if she really saw any of it. I wondered if she could smell the mustiness of the foxes or hear their barks nearby or feel the cold dew soaking into her nightgown and, in a way, I hoped that she could not.
Then her body seemed to slacken and her breathing slowed. Through it all, she held my hand.
* * *
I thought her dead for a while. I thought even the foxes sensed it because I could see their bodies mingling in the low branches of the thicket, or the silhouette of a brave dog-fox standing close by in the shadows. I did not know how she could have survived such a loss because, despite my age, I had never seen a birth nor death and knew little of the human body.
Her face was pale and I could not remember when I had last seen a breath, but she lifted her head quite calmly and spoke to me as if she did not know that she had slept.
‘I think it is stopping,’ she said. ‘It does not hurt so much now.’
I did not know what to say. I leant over her and looked at the blood on her dress – a dark stain that swelled from the embroidered chest to the bottom hem and I thought that it seemed a little darker at the edges and the fabric seemed to be stiffening – maybe she was right but it was little consolation. My throat felt hard and swollen as if a single word would choke me.
Then she propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Have I missed the omnibus?’ she said.
‘What?’ I whispered, and I wondered if I had heard her correctly. ‘The omnibus?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
But I still had to pause for a moment because I could not think what she spoke of.
‘Have I missed it?’ she repeated.
‘You can’t think of that now,’ I said and for a moment I feared her confused – that she had no idea what had just happened to her. ‘You need to go home and rest and—’
‘I can’t go back,’ she said.
‘Iris—’
‘My father has done this,’ she said firmly. ‘How could I go back to him now?’
‘You have no choice,’ I said quietly.
She looked at me questioningly and I saw a little more life in her face despite the paleness of her skin, and I feared that I would need to explain.
‘Sam…’ I began but I could not find the right words. I took off my dark and sodden glove and I fumbled in my little lace bag and took out the rabbit’s foot, thrusting it into her hand. ‘Sam wants you to have this but he—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Nell,’ she said wearily. ‘I know that Sam will not leave with me. Deep down I suppose I always knew that he never would.’ She placed the rabbit’s foot back in my hand.
‘Oh,’ I said quietly. ‘Then what—’
‘I can’t go back to my father now,’ she repeated. ‘I still have the name of the place in Brighton. I could recover there at least. It is far away, like you said.’
‘You can’t, Iris,’ I cried. ‘Look at the state of you! You need to go back home.’
‘No,’ she said calmly, and then I knew that she meant it.
I looked at what we had between us – the little lace bag that contained only a shilling and a biscuit with a piece of cheese wrapped in brown paper. Iris did not even have any boots and her clothes were soaked with blood.
‘Here,’ I said. ‘You can wear my dress as I will do fine in these britches if I do the jacket up over my slip. Can you stand now?’
I stood up and held my hand out to her and she took it, standing up shakily, but she stood at least.
I took off Sam’s jacket and untucked my nightgown from Sam’s britches, pulling it over my head and throwing it on to a bank of bracken. Then I undid the last few ties on her nightgown, letting it fall to the ground, and I took up my own gown again and wrestled it over her head, fumbling to put her arms in the sleeves and smoothing it down her body so that the hem fell to her ankles.
‘My mother will be out preparing the church,’ I said as I fumbled with the buttons on Sam’s jacket. ‘She will not even have checked that I am risen. You can rest in my room if you do not feel like going home. It is near to where the omnibus stops so you might yet be able to catch one.’
She nodded eagerly.
‘I can find you some proper clothes and shoes when we get there.’ Then I added, ‘It might not be the May Queen’s white slippers but I can lend you some muddy old boots.’
She laughed – it was only a little but it was enough. ‘Alright,’ she said.