Farewell to Lancashire (18 page)

They did as she suggested, walking silently back through the streets, not stopping to talk to anyone, not even speaking to one another.

Inside the house, Pandora began weeping. ‘Poor uncle. Just as we were getting to know him.’

‘We’ve no time to weep,’ Cassandra said sharply. ‘She’ll throw us out of here. I’m quite sure of that.’

They all gaped at her.

‘I think we’d better pack our things and be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.’

‘But where would we go?’ Xanthe asked.

‘I don’t know. I think we should ask Mr Rainey for his advice.’

‘I’m not going into the poorhouse,’ Xanthe said at once.

‘We may be able to find a room to rent.’

When Cassandra went up to her bedroom to sort out her few remaining possessions, she looked round regretfully. It was such a lovely bright room. Was nothing ever to go right for them? Her thoughts kept going back to her uncle. He hadn’t deserved such a death and she still couldn’t understand why anyone would want to kill a kind man like him.

She hoped the police would find the murderer before he attacked anyone else.

She hesitated about whether to pull her money and locket out of its hiding place, but decided to leave them there. They’d be safer than in her pocket, she was sure.

For the rest of the day they waited for a message from their aunt, but it didn’t arrive until after nightfall.

A lad knocked on the door and said, ‘Mrs Blake wants to see Cassandra. She doesn’t want to see the others.’

‘Did she give you a note?’

He shook his head.

‘When does she want to see me?’

‘Right now. She’s waiting for you at the shop.’ He turned and ran off into the darkness.

Cassandra took her shawl off the hook in the hall.

‘You can’t go out on your own,’ Xanthe said. ‘Not after what happened to our uncle.’

‘I must follow her instructions in case there’s a chance— No, I’m sure she’s going to tell us to leave the cottage.’

‘Why does she want to see only you?’

‘I think she hates me most of all, though I can’t understand why.’

‘We’re coming with you anyway,’ Pandora insisted. ‘We can wait round the corner from the shop and she’ll not see us. But we’re not risking you getting murdered like our uncle.’

Cassandra and Pandora were walking ahead of the other two when suddenly, a man called out, ‘Get the tallest one.’

Men pounced on them and tried to drag Cassandra away. She and Pandora fought their attackers and the twins came running to their help, screaming at the tops of their voices.

In the mêlée, Maia was knocked unconscious, Pandora was sent flying and Xanthe was punched viciously in the stomach, collapsing on the pavement, fighting for breath. The men quickly dragged Cassandra away, one of them thumping Pandora when she ran back and tried to cling to her sister.

By the time Pandora had stood up and Xanthe had caught her breath, there was no sign of the men ... or of their sister.

It had happened so quickly, Pandora thought as she stared at the surrounding darkness. She couldn’t think what to do, was still shocked by the speed of the attack. The men had clearly been after Cassandra from the start and only one other person had known her sister was going out tonight: their aunt. Had Isabel Blake arranged this? Why?

She heard footsteps and for a moment fear held her motionless. Then she realised that this wasn’t more attackers, but people coming to their aid. Soon they were surrounded, explaining what had happened, seeing the shock on their rescuers’ faces.

A man immediately offered them shelter in his nearby house. Maia was still unconscious, so had to be carried there.

No one even tried to pursue the attackers, though Pandora begged them to. The men kept assuring her that the police would soon find them, or else the men would let their captive go when they found she had no money.

But Pandora had heard someone say ‘Get the tallest one’. She knew this wasn’t a random attack, only she couldn’t think why they wanted Cassandra.

Maia recovered consciousness but seemed dazed, and all three of them were terrified for their sister.

When the policemen came, they questioned each sister in turn, but dismissed Pandora’s idea that the men had set out to capture Cassandra.

‘You must be mistaken. Why should anyone want to hurt your sister? No, they saw you and seized their chance,’ the sergeant said. ‘It’s never safe for decent young women to walk out at night, or men either. I’ll send my men to search the slum streets. You’d better stay here till we’ve done it, if that’s all right?’ He looked at the householder, who nodded.

But the two policemen on night duty didn’t find any sign of Cassandra, nor could they find anyone who had seen the men carrying her away.

After that even the sergeant couldn’t pretend the missing woman would come back safely.

Isabel sat in her parlour after the shop had closed for the night, rang for the maid and asked for a tea tray. When it came she poured herself a cup she didn’t really want, realised some time later that it had gone cold. She tipped it into the pot in which a plant was struggling to grow. She hated having plants in the house, but one of her friends had given this one to her, so she’d let it stay there for a while. It’d soon die. Plants always died when you didn’t look after them.

At half-past nine she rang for Dot to take away the tea tray and went to stand by the window. A short time later a lad walked along the street, picked up a stone and shied it at a lamppost. That was the signal they’d agreed on.

Smiling, Isabel sat down again. The men had done it, captured her eldest niece, the one who was the most immoral of them all. Now they’d be punishing her as she deserved.

The Bible said that the wages of sin was death, but that was too easy. Isabel wanted Cassandra to suffer for a long time to come, suffer as she herself had done, for years and years, married to a soft-hearted fool, with no children, no future.

If the other girls did as she wished, she’d not have them punished in the same way. She’d have to force them to leave, of course, but they’d do anything to help their sister, she was sure.

It was wonderful what money could buy. And she’d be in charge of all the money from now on. She’d not have to scrimp and save her pin money to gather enough to pay for the services she needed.

For a moment her thoughts went to Joseph, lying dead at the undertaker’s because she’d refused to have his body at home, saying the customers wouldn’t like it to lie above the shop.

She kept thinking she saw him, standing in the corner, looking at her in that sad, reproachful way he had. There he was again.

‘It’s your own fault you’re dead!’ she told him. ‘Go away!’ When he didn’t, she screamed, ‘Go away!’ Still, he didn’t move from the corner.

She refused to look at him any more, picking up a book and holding it in front of her face.

Downstairs, Dot stopped when she heard the scream. But the bell didn’t ring and she didn’t go near her mistress if she could help it, so simply got on with her work.

If only she could find another job! She’d leave here tomorrow. But jobs were scarce at a time like this.

At eleven o’clock there was a knock on the house door.

Isabel went to answer it herself, because she’d sent the maid to bed an hour ago.

At the door stood the Vicar, his wife and a policeman. She stared at them, trying to look worried and shocked. ‘What’s the matter?’ She pressed one hand to her chest.

‘Could we come inside, my dear lady?’ the Vicar asked.

Isabel led the way upstairs, allowed Sylvia to sit beside her on the sofa and listened as they told her about the attack on her nieces.

Hiding her delight that the others had been hurt in the struggle, she fell into hysterics and had to be helped to bed. Dot was standing at the foot of the attic stairs, staring at them. Could the maid see Joseph too? Was that why the girl kept staring at her?

‘Go away!’ she yelled, unable to bear the sight of the girl. ‘Leave me alone.’ When this was all over, she’d get rid of Dot and find an older maid, one who didn’t stare at her as if she knew what was going on.

She didn’t let the Vicar send for the doctor, just asked for a dose of her calming medicine.

Sylvia insisted on staying the night and when Isabel couldn’t persuade her to go away, she tried to sound grateful and told her to use the spare bedroom.

As her bedroom door closed she sighed happily, smiling at the window, its shape illuminated by a nearby gas lamp in the street. She hoped that immoral creature was suffering, that the men were doing what she’d asked them to, that they’d
hurt
her.

Tomorrow she’d tell the other girls they had a week to get out of the house. They weren’t
her
nieces, after all.

Only after they’d left town would she bury her husband. She wasn’t having
them
at the funeral.

It took her a long time to get to sleep because she kept thinking she saw a man’s dark outline at the foot of the bed.

Cassandra fought desperately against her attackers, but there were several of them and they were far stronger than her. They gagged her quickly and efficiently, then tied and blindfolded her. She was carried by two of them, one at her head and one at her feet.

Where were they taking her? Why?

After a while they stopped and she heard a door open. She was sure they were now inside a building. Carrying her down some steps, they dumped her on what felt like a mattress.

Bound and helpless, she could only lie there while the men spoke in low voices nearby. She had heard someone cry, ‘Get the tallest one.’ Could this be her aunt’s doing? Were these men going to murder her? Had her uncle been murdered at his wife’s behest?

It was unthinkable. Only ... it was happening.

Shuddering, terrified, she could only wait to find out what they would do.

Footsteps came towards her and someone fastened her arms to the bed head. He untied her legs and lifted her skirt. She knew then what they intended. When she tried to kick out at him, he slapped her so hard, her head rang with pain.

He didn’t say a word the whole time he was raping her, didn’t seem to notice or care how much he was hurting her or that tears were running down her cheeks.

When he’d finished he left and she lay there weeping.

Someone else grunted and climbed on to the bed and to her horror, it started all over again.

She thought she’d die of it, but she didn’t, could only endure.

When the second man had finished she hoped they’d release her, but they didn’t. They simply left her lying on the bed, humiliated and helpless.

The tears stopped, but the fear didn’t go away.

Nor did the men.

The Minister and his wife came to the house where the three remaining sisters had been offered refuge and tried to take them to their home.

‘What if Cassandra comes back to the cottage?’ Xanthe asked. ‘We have to go there and wait for her. She may be hurt.’

‘We can’t leave you alone there,’ Mr Rainey protested. ‘Maia is still dizzy. You’re both badly bruised. What if you’re attacked again?’

But they refused to go anywhere else, walking through the dark streets with the Minister, his wife and a policeman. The town was quiet. They met no one. It was as if the darkness had swallowed up their sister, and everyone else too.

‘We’ll come round first thing in the morning,’ Mr Rainey said. ‘Don’t open the door to anyone but the police or me.’

When they were alone, the sisters went to sit in the kitchen, waiting for they knew not what.

The clock ticked away a long, slow hour, and then another, but Cassandra didn’t come back.

‘We should get some sleep,’ Pandora said at last. ‘Maia, you look as if you’re about to collapse.’

‘We can’t just – go to bed. We must be here for when she comes back.’

‘I’ll stay up and keep watch. I may doze but I’ll hear if anyone knocks.’

But no one did. The house remained quiet until morning brought people into the streets again. Before the Cotton Famine, the mill hooters would have woken everyone and the streets would have been full of hurrying footsteps. It was quieter now, far too quiet at the cottage.

As they were preparing breakfast, Maia burst into tears suddenly.

‘Stop that!’ Pandora said as she continued to sob. ‘What good will it do to cry?’

But her own eyes kept filling with tears. Something terrible had happened to Cassandra, she knew it.

The morning following the attack, the police sergeant went to see Isabel to talk about her nieces again. Her friend Sylvia was still there to support her.

Isabel looked at the sergeant in feigned outrage. ‘You mean my husband’s nieces were walking the streets after dark?’

‘They said you’d asked Cassandra to come and see you.’

‘
After dark?
My husband was
killed
walking after dark. Do you think I’d have asked any decent young woman to risk being attacked?’