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The Mourning Necklace

Kate Foster
Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. Kate Foster
  3. Dedication page
  4. Public Notice
  5. PART ONE
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. PART TWO
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. PART THREE
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Chapter Twenty-Four
  32. Chapter Twenty-Five
  33. Chapter Twenty-Six
  34. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  35. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. EPILOGUE
  45. HISTORICAL NOTE
  46. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  47. About the Author
  48. Also by Kate Foster

Cover

Cover image: The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

Kate Foster

THE MOURNING NECKLACE

Mantle Logo

Dedication page

For Ruby

Public Notice

Public Notice

Notice is hereby given that, on 2nd September 1724, at the Grassmarket Gallows, Edinburgh, at eleven o’clock in the morning, there will be an Execution by Hanging of sundry criminals, for miscellaneous offences, including Murder, Coining, Robbery and Concealment of a Pregnancy.

Public Order will be kept, and rioters arrested.

Any of the Hanged criminals whose bodies are unclaimed by next of kin will be taken by the Anatomists of Edinburgh for dissection at the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers.

PART ONE

HANGING DAY

Chapter One

The Sheep Heid Inn,
Duddingston, near Edinburgh
2nd September 1724

Oh, I am supposed to be dead!

My breath catches in my throat, the way it does when I’m jolted from a deep sleep. I try to cry out, but my mouth burns. My tongue is fat and dry. My hands are laid upon my chest as if in prayer. I unclasp them. Prayer was never that much of a comfort to me.

I’ve just had a dream so vivid I could have sworn it was real. I dreamed a snake had coiled itself tight around my neck and was squeezing the life out of me, pressing my veins and making my eyes bulge. A snake with a taut shiny skin, scales the colour of good hemp rope. It hissed my name. You will die, Mistress Maggie Dickson. It tried with all its might to strangle me. But at the last moment I grasped the creature and managed to drag it off me and toss it away.

I am supposed to be dead, so where am I? I am lying on my back, and everything is dark. Is this heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Will they come at me with flights of angels or with fire and brimstone?

My chest rises and falls. I am breathing. I lay my hand on my heart to feel the pulse of me. It gallops under my fingers faster and harder than it has ever done. I am alive, it says, I am alive. There are no angels or demons or serpents or snakes. Just one living, breathing woman.

My hands are stiff with pins and needles and my gown feels wrong: too loose and too thin and stiffly ruffled at the neck, like a child’s dress. I squeeze and unsqueeze my fingers, searching for the familiar ridge of the glass ring Spencer gave me. The ring isn’t on my finger, but of course I knew it wouldn’t be. For did I not hand that ring over to Joan yesterday? As she bawled and howled, but took it anyway and pushed it onto her pinkie, blinking away her tears and pretending not to admire how the glass beads twinkled. She had always had her eye on that ring.