Scarlet Widow by Graham Masterton Page B

tomorrow morning. I can’t possibly teach young girls embroidery with my fingers all black like this.’
    ‘Papa used to use spirit of hartshorn.’
    ‘In that case, I trust that you have some.’
    ‘I don’t know, cousin Sarah. I’ll have to go down to the cellar and look.’
    ‘And if you haven’t?’
    ‘The apothecary in the High Street will probably stock it. Or, when papa ran out, he used piddle.’
    ‘He did what ?’
    Beatrice blushed. Her father had always talked to her so straightforwardly that she often forgot that other people could be more prudish. Whenever his hands were stained with lunar caustic he would urinate into a bowl and wash his hands in it, so that the ammonia would bleach out the silver.
    She was just about to explain this to cousin Sarah when Jeremy passed the dining-room doorway, very furtively, almost on tiptoes. He had almost reached the front door when one of the floorboards creaked.
    ‘Jeremy!’ said cousin Sarah, without looking round. ‘You’re not going out, are you, Jeremy? I need you to come to Mrs Jupp’s with me and carry those sacks of old clothing that we collected for the poor.’
    Jeremy stopped, but kept his back turned. ‘I can’t, mama. I’ve arranged to meet Frederick.’
    ‘Frederick can wait. I can’t possibly carry all of those sacks by myself.’
    ‘You can get Jenks to do it, can’t you?’
    ‘I could, yes. But there’s another reason I want you to come with me. I very much want you to meet Mrs Jupp’s youngest daughter, Grace.’
    ‘Oh, please , mama! You’re not trying to marry me off again, are you? It was that hideous Rebecca Buckland the last time. I would rather have walked down the aisle with an Old Spot pig than with her! Get Jenks to lug your sacks for you.’
    He carried on down the hallway, towards the front door, but cousin Sarah went after him. She caught up with him just as he lifted his hand to open the latch.
    ‘Show me your fingers,’ she said.
    Beatrice went out into the hallway to see Jeremy jamming both his hands into his armpits.
    ‘Show me your fingers!’ cousin Sarah demanded.
    Reluctantly, Jeremy held out both his hands.
    ‘You thief !’ she screamed. ‘Taking my money like that! How did you dare to do such a thing?’
    ‘I didn’t take your money! I’ll lay a wager it was Agnes! Jingled her pocket, have you? I’ll bet you it was her!’
    Cousin Sarah clutched his wrist and forced him to hold up his black-stained fingers. ‘You can’t deny it! This is the proof! Your cousin Beatrice covered the coins with caustic! Look – see ! – it stained my fingers, too! Now, give me my money back, this instant, you ungrateful devil!’
    ‘Ungrateful? Ungrateful? What do I have to be grateful for? You give me half a crown a week and expect me to live like a lord!’
    ‘If you didn’t spend every penny in the Old Crown, drinking ale with those feckless friends of yours, perhaps you might save some of it! Now, give it back to me!’
    Jeremy reached inside his sagging coat pocket and brought out a heap of pennies and sixpences. He dropped them one by one into his mother’s cupped hands, but while he did so he was staring not at the coins but at Beatrice, unblinkingly, and the look in his eyes was one of fury.
    *
    For the next three days Jeremy avoided her. When they did have to meet, passing each other on the landing or sitting together at the dining table for supper, he refused to look at her or speak to her. His fingertips remained stubbornly blotched with black, as did cousin Sarah’s. They had sent Agnes to the local apothecary to buy some spirits of hartshorn and for a whole afternoon the house reeked of ammonia. But they had left it too late to rub off the stains and they had become indelible.
    Cousin Sarah wouldn’t say if she had also attempted to rub them off with ‘piddle’, and Beatrice didn’t dare suggest it again, but that probably wouldn’t have worked, either. They would just have to wait until they