‘Dead? Dozens of people killed? But not Gideon? You did say not Gideon, Cecily?’ Ellie could not hide her panic.
‘No, no, he’s alive. But it was awful, Ellie, truly dreadful.’
Ellie learned of the accident within hours of it happening from her cousin Cecily, who had heard of it from her mother.
‘Gideon!’ she whispered, pressing her hand to her breast as though to control the furious racing of her heart, and swaying so much that she had to reach for a chair in Cecily’s morning room to support herself. ‘Gideon has been hurt?’
‘Ellie, I’m so sorry,’ Cecily tried to comfort her, her own face paling as she recognised the intensity of Ellie’s emotions. Ellie had always insisted that Mr Walker no longer meant anything to her, and Cecily had believed her, but now…It was too late for her to wish that she
had not mentioned his name, Cecily recognised, or to refuse to answer Ellie’s frantically anxious questions.
‘What has happened? Tell me. I want to know everything.
Tell me
, Cecily,’ she demanded fiercely.
Cecily bit her lip, but Ellie would not be denied.
‘Tell me,’ she insisted.
‘Well, it seems that my father saw Mr Walker when he was first taken into hospital,’ Cecily informed her reluctantly, ‘and –’
‘He is in hospital?’
Cecily looked away, her tender heart aching for the anguish she could see in her cousin’s eyes.
Then: ‘Ellie, Ellie, where are you going?’ she called after her worriedly as, without a word, Ellie turned and ran towards the door.
‘Cecily, I’m sorry, I have to go,’ she told her.
They had planned to go shopping together, but Cecily made no attempt to dissuade her. Nevertheless, just as soon as Ellie had gone she lost no time in telephoning her husband to confide in him her anxieties about her cousin.
‘She must still love him, Paul,’ she wept. ‘And yet she has always denied doing so.’
‘She is more than likely suffering from shock,’ Paul had comforted her. ‘Leave her be for now, Cecily. Ellie is a sensible and very strong young woman. She will soon be her normal self again, you’ll see. As to her loving Gideon Walker, it would be unnatural in the circumstances if she
were not affected by such dreadful news, but Ellie has accepted Henry’s proposal of marriage.’
Ellie wasn’t quite sure how she came to be standing on Preston station. She had no recollection of having boarded the train in Liverpool, but obviously she must have done so.
The motion of the hansom cab made her feel sick, its air stale and fetid.
A grim pall of death hung over the infirmary, although its corridors were empty, and there was nothing of the disaster for Ellie to see.
‘Gideon Walker?’ The exhausted-looking nurse frowned as Ellie gave Gideon’s name in a faltering voice. ‘Who are you then?’
‘I…he is a friend of my family,’ Ellie managed to respond. She had gone terribly cold and her teeth had started to chatter. She felt sick, dizzy, light-headed, a hundred times worse than she had done when her mother had died. Because this time her fear wasn’t for herself but for Gideon? She fought to resist the thought.
The nurse scrutinised her before replying, ‘What a shame, duck. You won’t be able to see him. You’re too late. He’s gone!’
Ellie gasped and swayed, her face blenching. Gideon was dead! She would never see him again. Never hear his voice…The pain tore at her like nothing she had ever experienced or ever imagined – dark, feral, clawing and ripping at her like a wild animal.
‘Aye,’ the woman continued, oblivious to Ellie’s distress. ‘Some fine lady came and took him away. In a fair old state she was too, proper upset! And a grand to-do about her taking ’im away, but they let her in the end.’
Mary Isherwood – that must be who the woman was talking about, Ellie guessed through her blaze of pain. Mary Isherwood had taken Gideon.
Numbly Ellie started to walk away.
‘Ellie?’
Ellie stared uncomprehendingly into her Aunt Amelia’s stern face as though she were a stranger.
‘What are you doing here in Preston? In Winckley Square and on your own?’
‘I came to see Gideon,’ Ellie told her quietly.
Amelia Gibson frowned, her lips pursing. ‘Quite obviously, Ellie, you are not feeling yourself, otherwise you would never have done something so…foolish. Does my sister know you are here? No?’ she challenged, when Ellie merely shook her head slowly. ‘Come with me, Ellie. This sort of behaviour is intolerable and would have deeply shamed your mother.’
‘Gideon…’ Ellie began helplessly, as her aunt took a firm hold of her arm.
‘I will not hear that young man’s name spoken,’ Amelia Gibson told her coldly. ‘I am disappointed in you, Ellie. How can you behave so, after everything that has been done for you?’
Ellie gave a deep shudder as her aunt pushed her firmly into her home.
‘Have you any idea how shocked I was to look out of my parlour window and see you standing in the square, for all the world…?’ Her lips folded into a condemningly hard line. ‘I shall telephone my sister immediately and you will be sent back to Liverpool on the first available train, and from there escorted to Hoylake. Whatever can have possessed you?’
Ellie wanted to cry even though her eyes were so dry that she could not do so. She had no more idea than her aunt as to just what had motivated her behaviour, or even of how she came to be in Winckley Square.
‘So, miss, what do you have to say for yourself?’
Ellie quailed as she looked into the angry features of her Uncle Parkes. He had sent for her to present herself to him in his study, making her feel like a prisoner as she was firmly escorted there by his manservant.
The air in the room was so thick with cigar smoke that it made her choke a little. A decanter of spirit stood nearly empty on his desk, a half-filled glass beside it.
As he came out from behind his desk and walked towards her, Ellie could smell the overpowering scent of alcohol on his breath.
‘I-I can’t explain what…why…my feelings…’
Ellie realised immediately that she had said the wrong thing as his face darkened and he took a step towards her.
‘Your feelings. Aye, well, we all know now what those are, don’t we?’ he raged. ‘Just as we all know what you are! Bringing disgrace upon yourself and upon my house by…’ Reaching for his glass, he took a deep swallow, almost emptying it, whilst Ellie trembled in distress.
‘You are an ungrateful little harlot – a whore. And it is my duty to castigate and punish you for your sinfulness.’
Ellie was beginning to feel frightened. Her uncle’s face was a dark red colour, and tiny specks of spittle flew from his mouth as he raged at her, calling her all manner of horrible things, using words she had never heard before but which she knew instinctively were degrading and disgusting. Shock piled up on top of shock, fear upon fear, until they lay suffocatingly heavy over her, choking, smothering her ability to protest.
She felt numbed, as though what was happening around her could not possibly be real, and yet at the same time her senses were somehow heightened so that she could feel the sharp, savage bite of her own fear so intensely that it was magnified a hundred times. She was afraid of the intensity of his anger, which was totally outside her experience but, more than that, she was desperately afraid of the danger she could sense closing around her, a danger that had its roots in the sickening look she could see in
his eyes, the hot feral smell he was generating in the air around her, the deep inner awareness she suddenly had that made her want to turn and run, and yet held her immobile where she stood.
‘Engaged to a decent, respectable young man, and yet you go whoring with your lover – well, I fully intend to put an end to that. You will marry Henry Charnock, miss, without delay, and just to make sure you understand what I am saying to you…’
To Ellie’s terror he removed a thick heavy leather belt studded with brass from his desk drawer, wrapping it slowly and almost caressingly around his hand as he stared at her, transfixing her with the intensity of his gaze.
‘There is only one way to punish females like you!’
Terrified, Ellie turned and ran blindly towards the door, but Josiah reached it before her, barring her exit, his lips parting in a hot panting breath of pleasure as he saw her fear and heard her small anguished cry of despair.
‘Seeking to evade your deserved punishment. For that you will get double rations.’
He was insane, Ellie decided frantically. He had to be. Just the sight of the hot, gloating look in his eyes made her feel sick and faint. She could not believe that this was happening. Her own father had never once whipped either her or her sister in all their lives, and he was a mere butcher, whilst her uncle was a gentleman. Then she remembered
the bruises she had seen on her aunt’s body, and the haunting look of fear Ellie had so often seen in her eyes as she looked at her husband.
Later Ellie was to acknowledge that it was in those seconds, trapped in that room, that she had undergone the fiercely swift and ferociously painful metamorphosis from which she emerged as a very different person. Panic shocked through her. Helplessly she looked towards the curtained window, but even if she could reach it before her uncle she knew she could not escape through it.
As she looked at him the plea she had been about to make to him to reconsider his actions died unspoken. He was licking his lips lasciviously and, as he smiled coldly at her, Ellie saw the way his hand strayed to his own body.
Her face burning with outrage and shame, she looked away from him, her stomach heaving.
‘Little whore.’ He said it almost tenderly, but his grip on her shoulder was anything but tender, making her cry out in pain. ‘You should be thankful to me that I am providing you with the respectability of a husband; protecting you from your own sinfulness! Slut…harlot…’ He ground out the words in her face, covering her skin in spittle as he lowered his mouth towards hers.
Nauseous, Ellie managed to turn her face aside as she frantically begged him to stop.
‘Stop? Why? Do not pretend that you are not enjoying it,’ he taunted her. ‘A slut like you – how many times have you done it? Tell me…’
Sobbing, Ellie tried desperately to pull away, gasping in terror as she felt the sleeve of her gown tear beneath his grip.
‘Defy me, would you?’ Josiah challenged her savagely.
His hand was on her bare arm, his nails digging into her flesh. Revulsion jolted through her, a hot lava-flow of disgust. His hand moved from her arm to the bodice of her dress, his fingers clawing at her breast.
A strength she hadn’t known she possessed came to her rescue, and she shoved him aside with all her might.
Caught off guard he staggered but still retained his hold on her.
‘Now you will be punished,’ he told her, and Ellie could see the anticipatory pleasure in his eyes.
As he spoke he reached for the front of her gown, tearing at it, his nails sharp against her skin. Ellie screamed as she felt his hot breath against her semi-exposed breasts as his fingers tugged and pinched at them.
Her shock and fear, the heat, the stench of alcohol and male sexual aggression were overwhelming her. She could feel her senses starting to slip away. Frantically she fought to remain conscious.
He was tearing at her skirts now, and reaching for the leather belt. Terror-stricken, Ellie screamed again. She could see him raising his arm, the light glinting off the brass studs on the belt. She was
doomed. He would beat her senseless and then…She dare not even think of it.
Desperately she tried to pull away from him, but the pain of his fingers squeezing tightly into her breast was agonising. As the reality of what was happening to her crashed down on her, Ellie instinctively prayed to her mother.
‘Stop fighting me and take your punishment, little whore…’
‘Josiah, let her go at once!’
Ellie wasn’t sure which of them was the more shocked by the coldly demanding sound of her aunt’s voice, her uncle or herself.
The library door was open and her aunt stood just within it, flanked by Wrotham and Lizzie.
‘Get out of here,’ Josiah said thickly, slurring his words slightly, ‘otherwise you will get the same.’
‘If you do not let her go this instant, Josiah, I promise you you will regret it,’ her aunt persisted doggedly, though Ellie could see the fear in her eyes.
Perhaps more out of disbelief than anything else, her uncle had relaxed his grip. Seizing her opportunity, Ellie ran for the door and was half pulled through it by Lizzie, whilst Wrotham slammed it firmly and quickly turned the key, leaving Josiah locked inside.
Ellie could hear the sound of her uncle’s fists pounding against it as he demanded to be let out.
‘It is all right, Ellie. You will be safe now,’ her aunt told her. ‘Your uncle will be sober in
the morning and then the monster you have seen tonight will be safely leashed.’
Safely leashed…Ellie stared at her, unable to say a word.
‘Come on, miss, let’s get you to your room.’ Staring unseeingly ahead, Ellie allowed Lizzie to guide her across the hallway.
It was almost lunchtime when Ellie woke, her mouth dry and her head still muzzy from the sleeping draught her aunt and Wrotham had insisted she was to take.
A brief knock on her bedroom door threw her into panic, her heart racing frantically until the door opened and she saw that the person entering her room was not, as she had feared, her uncle, but Lizzie.
‘I’ve been up a few times, miss,’ Lizzie informed her, ‘but you was still asleep and the mistress said I was to let you be.’
‘Oh, Lizzie!’ The intensity of her emotions choked Ellie’s voice, her hand gripping Lizzie’s wrist as she clung to her maid.
‘It’s all right, miss,’ Lizzie tried to reassure her. ‘It seems Mr Parkes was called away on some urgent business this morning.’
The very mention of her uncle’s name was enough to make Ellie tremble violently. ‘Oh, Lizzie,’
Ellie wept. ‘What am I to do? My aunt insists that…that I must not think about last night, that it is to be forgotten, but I am so afraid.’
‘With good reason, miss,’ Lizzie told her fiercely. ‘I blame myself. All us servants know what the master can be like. You bain’t the first, miss, not by a long chalk. Us ’ave all seen the way he’s been eyeing you but none of us thought that he’d actually dare.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, what am I to do?’ Ellie wept. ‘I cannot stay here now, but there is nowhere else I can go!’
‘If you want my advice, miss,’ Lizzie told her firmly, ‘the best thing you can do now is to marry Mr Henry just as quick as it can be arranged.’
Ashen-faced, Ellie listened.
The sleeping draught she had been given was clogging her brain, whilst her fear was driving her heart to beat so fast it was making her feel dizzy. Her skin was bruised and scratched just like her aunt’s. Closing her eyes, Ellie shuddered. For as long as she lived she would remember those fear-filled minutes during which she had had to endure Josiah’s touch.
‘He won’t leave you alone, miss, not now,’ Lizzie was insisting. ‘Doesn’t like not getting what he wants.’
Ellie’s stomach churned nauseously as she recognised the truth of Lizzie’s words.
‘I…I must get up, Lizzie,’ she told her maid.
‘Aye, and we’ll have to find something that will
cover those bruises, miss,’ Lizzie advised her as she helped Ellie to get out of bed.
‘Ellie, my dear, you are looking a little pale. Now you must not take Mr Parkes’ crossness of last night too much to heart. You must own that he had every reason to be displeased with you after your behaviour! My sister Gibson was most shocked to find you in Winckley Square, and we must hope that no one outside the family will discover just why you went there. Such unacceptable behaviour, Ellie – I’m sure if your Aunt Gibson had not seen you, you would have been completely disgraced. It is no wonder that your uncle was so annoyed. Your poor dear mother would have been so very upset. However, I am sure you now realise the error of your ways, and we need say no more about the subject. Had you been Mr Parkes’ own daughter he could not be more fond of you, Ellie, and…and that is why –’
‘Why he tried to rape me,’ Ellie supplied quietly for her.
‘Ellie!’
Her aunt had placed her hand to her heart, and Ellie could see how agitated and upset she was, even without Wrotham moving protectively to her mistress’s side, whilst glaring warningly at Ellie.
‘You must never ever say such a thing again, Ellie,’ her aunt told her, white-faced. ‘Never! Mr Parkes is a man of probity and family – a man
whom other men respect and trust. And you are a very fortunate woman to have been given a home beneath his roof. There will scarcely be a mother of daughters in this city, Ellie, who will not feel that Mr Parkes had every right to chastise you for your disgraceful behaviour – and for you to make such…such accusations against him…I have to confess I do not understand you, Ellie! I am very disappointed in you. It is to be hoped that what you did does not become public knowledge. If it did, Mr Henry Charnock would have every reason to end his engagement to you.’
Ellie could feel her throat locking with grief and disbelief as she listened to her aunt.
She ached to confront her with the reality of what had happened, but she could see that there was no point; that her aunt had simply closed her mind to that reality, and that nothing and no one, least of all Ellie herself, was going to change that!