Scarlet Widow by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

a tree and bristling with arrows, his eyes rolled up towards the heavens.
    She sat up. Her coat and her gown and petticoats had all been hung over the back of a chair, and she was wearing nothing but her shift and corset, although she was covered with a thick knitted blanket. She lifted the blanket and saw that her shift was stained with blood, although it had dried now. So the porter had stabbed her. He must have been holding his clasp-knife in his hand when he pushed her. He couldn’t have cut her too badly, however, because she didn’t seem to be bleeding any longer.
    He had killed her father, though. Her father was actually dead. She lay back and covered her face with her hands, although for some reason she couldn’t cry. She felt completely dry, as if she had no tears left.
    She was still lying there when she heard footsteps coming upstairs and then a knock at the door, although it was open. She stayed where she was, with her face still covered. She didn’t want the next part of her life to start happening, not just yet.
    ‘How are you feeling, Bea?’ asked a kindly woman’s voice. ‘You look just like one of them saints lying on a tomb.’
    Beatrice took her hands away from her face. Molly had her head tilted to one side and was smiling at her sympathetically.
    ‘We’re all so sorry about your dear papa. Such a good man. Always had time to listen if you was sick with some pox or other, and always ready to give you a cordial even if you didn’t have the chink for it.’
    She sat down on the side of the bed. She had a large wart on her upper lip and very thick eyebrows. She took hold of Beatrice’s hand and said, ‘Dicky Andrews says he’ll help with all the arrangements, if you want him to. But you probably have relatives, don’t you? Aunts and uncles, someone you can turn to. All we want you to know, darling, is that you won’t be left to do everything on your own.’
    Beatrice didn’t know what to say. She still couldn’t cry, but she felt so exhausted that she couldn’t even find the words to tell Molly why she and her father had come to The Fortune, and that her mother’s body was lying in the back room. She was so tired that she could have closed her eyes and fallen asleep forever. At least if she did that she would see her parents again.
    ‘The constables came,’ said Molly. ‘We told them what happened, and who done it. They know the fellow, so they’ll probably grab him sooner or later. He’ll be dancing on nothing when he does.’
    ‘I can’t work out where he cut me,’ said Beatrice, lifting up the blanket again.
    ‘Well, you’ll forgive me, darling, but I took the liberty of looking, and he didn’t.’
    ‘But where did all this blood come from?.’
    Molly squeezed her hand. ‘You lost your mama, didn’t you, so you had nobody to tell you. But what it is, you’ve started your flow.’
    Beatrice frowned at her. She didn’t understand.
    ‘You’ve fallen off the roof,’ said Molly. ‘You’ve had a visit from auntie.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You’re a woman now, Bea, my darling, in more ways than one.’

Seven
    ‘As much as I would like to, Beatrice my dear, I simply cannot take care of you,’ said her Aunt Felicity. ‘Our house is full to capacity already, what with my brother’s family now that he is bankrupt, and my father who is in his dotage. I would, believe me, if only I had the room, but I believe you will be far more comfortable with your cousin Sarah in Birmingham.’
    Beatrice said nothing. She was standing in the parlour in front of the fire, which had burned low now so that it was reduced to hillocks of hot white ashes. Apart from Aunt Felicity the funeral guests had all left. There were glasses and plates to be washed and dried and put away, and the floor to be swept, and then she didn’t know what she would do, except lock the front door and climb the stairs to bed, like she used to do when her father had drunk too much and dropped off to sleep in his