Deep and dangerous pockets

Boldness.

That was one crime she had been accused of. She stood in front of her mistress as still as she could manage, well aware that any excuse for punishment would be found. Her hands, tucked behind her back, itched to reach under her apron which was stained with blood fresh from the rabbits she had skinned early that morning, and into the forbidden pockets that lurked beneath. There was an object there. An object she could almost feel in her hands: smooth cool metal, long and thin.

But women didn’t possess pockets, not like these, attached to the sides of skirts, easily accessible and deep. And female servants most certainly didn’t. There was no need. Items that required carrying from place to place could be done so in their hands. That’s what hands were for, fetching and carrying. They weren’t to be trusted; the servants or the pockets. Anything could be hidden there.

Anything.

Instead, with great reluctance and, she thought, fortitude, she held her hands together. She knew her knuckles would be white.

‘Hands where I can see them, Deliverance.’

Deliverance.

That wasn’t her given name. Well, only given to her when she was ‘rescued’ by Mrs MacDonald. Her given name was something softer, sweeter. In the moments between wakefulness and sleep she heard her mother’s voice singing a lullaby.

Hush little Liza, don’t say a word…

Mrs MacDonald had chosen to change her name when she had taken Liza in. It stamped ownership on her servants, in a way. It certainly wasn’t rescue in the true sense of the word. Her treatment of the young girl was far too cruel to be called that.

Mrs McDonald had dragged Liza away from her mother, kicking and screaming, taken her into captivity and put her to work. The most menial and repetitive tasks were given to her at first, of course, whilst she learnt other equally menial but more skilled roles. This had all happened ten years ago, now. She and her mother had been heading for the workhouse, following the loss of their father, killed in a mining accident along with many others.

Liza doubted her mother was still alive. She had heard that the workhouse was no place for a soft and gentle woman.

If disease hadn’t taken her she would have died of a broken heart.

Liza’s heart had almost broken too; then hardened, over the years.

Mrs MacDonald’s household was not a happy home. Full of wealth and riches, maybe, but never a breath of happiness., for anyone

Mr MacDonald had been long gone by the time Liza arrived. His wife wore black, a widow’s weeds, although there was rumour amongst the housemaids that he was alive and well in the Caribbean.

‘Living the life of Riley, so it’s been told, cavorting with nubile young women on his plantation,’ Charity whispered to her. Charity’s name was originally Hannah. ‘He won’t never be coming home to that sour-faced old...yes, Mrs MacDonald, your wish is my command.’ Charity would disappear when called, understanding that knowing your place was the safest road to follow.

Liza was like her father. Safety, even her own, wasn’t uppermost in her mind. She had little to lose. What she had was already lost.

Liza didn’t, though, rock the boat. There was little point; she soon learnt that. If you did punishment would follow. A night in the kitchen, in the dark, rats running over your feet. A few hours in the ice house, shivering with cold, stamping your feet to keep your blood flowing. No-one liked to see fellow servants punished. They were all in this together.

In the main.

In particular she was be-friended by the erstwhile governess (the MacDonald ‘children’ had long ago left the family home. The girls had gone to wealthy husbands, the boys had left for the Caribbean). Miss Watson was a good few years older than Liza, and well-respected within the household. Like Charity she understood, and played by, the rules. Superficially, at least. And by playing by the rules she kept her comfortable position, teaching embroidery, reading sermons to a dozing mistress.

‘Deliverance, in here, quick,’ she would whisper to Liza at the end of the working day, beckoning her into a room rarely used by Mrs MacDonald – the library.

Mrs MacDonald, having indulged in several glasses of sweet sherry from Jerez over dinner would be snoring in the drawing room, before being helped to bed by her maid.

She would be none the wiser, Miss Watson informed Liza. She should know - she’d done this before with other members of the household; although some of them resisted. It wasn’t their place. They had no time. They were too tired.

Each reason was understandable. As was fear.

The book-lined walls held mysteries for Liza. Mysteries she hadn’t begun to crave or desire. What use would reading be to her? How would it help her fold laundry, bake bread, feed scraps to the animals?

Bur Miss Watson – Catherine – introduced her to sermons and letters, poems and stories. Reading them to her at first, whilst Liza sewed. Miss Watson encouraged her to sew pockets into her clothing from offcuts of fabric – calico, sprigged cotton lawn linen, black silk leftover from one of Mrs MacDonald’s mourning gowns. Even to Liza this felt challenging and bold.

‘She will never see them,’ Miss Watson shrugged, taking the fabric from Liza, showing her how to make the seams, and thus the pockets, invisible from the outside. ‘Look.’ Miss Watson plunged her hands into her own pockets. Liza was astonished when they disappeared from view and giggled when Miss Watson moved them around, like bombazine puppets.

‘But even Mrs MacDonald’s dresses don’t have pockets,’ Liza said. ‘She says they aren’t for women’s clothing, that they are vulgar. She has a purse, small, impossible to find. I’ve watched her.’

Miss Watson raised her eyebrows.

‘Do you worry about vulgarity, Liza, in truth? When your tasks include scrubbing floors, rinsing a bathtub, emptying bedpans? And that this is your destiny for as long as you live here?’

Liza shrugged.

Miss Watson was correct.

And she thought about Destiny, the maidservant who had left last year under a cloud, her burgeoning belly having revealed the truth about her unwilling liaison with Mrs MacDonald’s youngest son.

Liza’s destiny could be a long, cruel sentence.

And so she sewed. Opened seams and sewed pockets into her tattered dresses whilst she listened. The stories and poems were captivating; transporting her to far off places, other times, worlds of wonder. She wept at the beauty of the ocean of words that surrounded her, keeping her afloat, breathing life into her.

And once she had listened Miss Watson introduced her to reading letters, words, then sentences. And then she taught her how to write, a cursive, tidy script that flowed across the paper, taking up little space.

More powerful skills than sewing, maybe.

Maybe.

*****

And now Miss Watson was gone. And she, Liza, Deliverance, was to blame. This is why she stood before Mrs MacDonald, hands behind her back, staring straight ahead, refusing to meet the woman’s gaze. Her manservant stood beside her, a slight smirk on his face.

It would appear the manservant wasn’t to be be trusted. They weren’t all, truly, in it together. Some were in it for their own advancement. Some were prepared to sell the souls of their colleagues, with little compunction.

It was the knowledge of grand words such as compunction that had given her, and Miss Watson, away. That and a certain carelessness, maybe born of an emerging confidence?

Liza hadn’t spotted Mrs MacDonald at the top of the stairs that morning, her black clothing casting a shadow as she hovered there, waiting.

Maybe she knew? Was seeking an opportunity to catch Liza out?

Her daily newspaper rested, ironed, on the mahogany dresser. It would be taken to her to read over breakfast – kippers, poached eggs and sweet, weak tea.

Liza was scrubbing the hall floor as Miss Watson appeared from the drawing room, carrying embroidery for Mrs MacDonald to watch her complete that morning, before she took credit for it when visitors arrived later that day.

‘Look,’ Liza said as she read the headlines, ‘there’s been a ghastly murder in the East End. Another. Aren’t all murders ghastly? And the deaths of these poor women. The man should be caught and dealt with, no compunction. If those women had been rich, society women, well...’

‘Indeed,’ Miss Watson replied. ‘They lived sorry lives only to face violent deaths...’ She disappeared into the dining room as Mrs MacDonald appeared from the shadows at the top of the stairs.

‘Stop scrubbing, insolent girl. Library, now. Wait for me there. You’re not the first, nor will you be the last.’

Liza, taken by surprise, head down, made her way to the room - that place of comfort and laughter, of unfolding worlds and beautiful words.

Now she was to wait there for her punishment.

She was there all morning before they turned up together – her mistress and the manservant.

‘She’s gone, Miss Watson. I thought you should know. Summarily dismissed.’

Those were the first words Mrs MacDonald spoke when she swept into the room. She didn’t speak of where Miss Watson had been taken, or sent, but wherever it was, it was unlikely to be soft sands and warm oceans that surrounded her.

She did speak of insurrection and boldness. Your station and gratitude. It was just like one of the sermons Liza had begged Miss Watson to cease reading, once she had understood the meaning of the words. All fire and brimstone, not the words of a forgiving God.

Liza’s hands itched and itched until she could bear it no more.

She slid her left hand around and into her pocket, which was created from the same shot black silk that Mrs MacDonald wore.

And she withdrew it.

The element of surprise bought her time. For that she was grateful. Him first, for he was most likely to overpower her, then Mrs MacDonald, a slow woman these days.

Her movements were swift. And accurate. Her weapon was sharp.

Her victims soon silent.

*****

Once back in her room, a room at the top of the house, squeezed into a roof space with barely enough height to stand, and a tiny window that didn’t open offering very little light, but enough, Liza pulled the weapon from her pocket. She wiped blood from it ( she was used to blood – it didn’t alarm her), pulled ink and paper from underneath her bed and began writing. She had no idea how long it would be before they came for her. She hoped it might be some time. There was no love lost amongst the household for Mrs MacDonald, or her lapdog of a manservant.

There was little point in attempting escape. Where would she go? The workhouse? The London streets – and meet the fate of other young women at the hands of a killer?

No.

She decided she would confess, when she was ready. She didn’t wish for suspicion to fall on her fellow servants.

She wrote and wrote, dipping her pen often in the inkpot.

If not tomorrow, or the day after, one day people would read of her life, their lives, word would spread. The lives of women with dangerous pockets. And pens as weapons.

Her headline read Sedition. The letters were large, and bold, this time.