by Emma Jameson
“The finest voice of St. Senara’s choir belonged to the vicar’s son, a lad named Matthew. He was a pretty one. Deep blue eyes that made the girls whisper. Brown hair with just a glimmer of ginger. A noble brow, and a smile like sorcery.”
Ben chuckled. Letty always found a way to flatter him in the course of her stories. It would have been churlish of him to object.
“In the Advent season, the hymnal was opened to songs about Mary and the birth of Christ. Throughout Zennor, villagers hung the mistletoe and the Christmas bush. They made up their fire with fragrant branches, burned the block, and asked me for tales of the Three Wise Men and Father Christmas....”
“The block?” Ben interrupted.
“Some call it the Yule log. But in Kernow we’ve always called it the burning of the block, just as we’ve always hung the bush and danced beneath it. You do know what I mean by the Christmas bush?”
“My housekeeper educated me,” Ben said. Mrs. Cobblepot, who kept many Pagan customs of the south west country, had constructed two such “bushes,” or traditional wreaths, out of holly, ivy, and mistletoe woven through a withy frame. One bush hung in Ben’s front room; the other was displayed in his examining room, to the praise and delight of his patients. During a wartime Christmas, the blackout made caroling by candlelight or lighting a tree on the village green illegal, so indoor observances were all the more meaningful.
“One Sunday at dusk, a woman no one had ever seen entered St. Senara’s church and slipped into a pew. She was neither young nor old, but beautiful and ageless, as if carven from stone. Her eyes were a clear blue-green, like the water at St. Ives, and her black hair fell in ringlets down her back. She carried herself with the bearing of a queen, looking neither left nor right, but only at the choir, and only at Matthew.
“After the evening service, most of the villagers filed back to their homes, to finish the Sabbath in quiet prayer, as was their way. A few rogues filed back to the pub, to finish the Sabbath with a pint of ale, as was my way,” she added, laughing. “To the vicar’s displeasure, his son Matthew followed the strange woman to the pub. There he spent the rest of the night in her company, drinking and boasting while she looked on, combing her hair.
“The next day, the vicar rebuked his son,” Letty went on. “He told Matthew that the woman was clearly a mermaid, and mermaids were agents of sin. ‘The wages of sin are death,’ the vicar warned. He reminded Matthew that when the siren beckons and the man follows, he’s pulled beneath the waters and never seen again. But Matthew’s ears were filled with the song of the sea, and when do the young ever listen to the old in matters of the heart? He paid no heed, even as his father called her a temptress, a seductress, and a lie masquerading as a woman.”
“I like her already,” Lady Juliet called, entering. Her maid, Dinah, followed with a hamper on her arm. “Forgive me for barging in, and do continue. Dinah, put the basket on that table. We’ll listen to the end of the story before we unpack Mrs. Smith’s dinner.”
“Gather round and be welcome,” Letty said, perking up at the arrival of more listeners. Her sharp eyes roved curiously over Dinah.
“Hallo, Lady Juliet.”
“Hallo, Dr. Bones.”
He tried to maintain eye contact, but she looked away. How could he ease the discomfort between them? He wasn’t meant to know the truth about her and Ethan. And she was so changed, it was hard to keep from staring. He wanted to touch her face, run his fingers through her hair, tease her like he used to. Well—not quite like he used to. Before, his motive had been to make her laugh and amuse himself. Now he wanted to impress her, see what sort of battle lines she would draw, and try to cross them.
Dinah dragged a pouf to the bedside. As Juliet settled herself on a stool, Ben watched from the corner of his eye. She sat taller these days. He liked that.
“Where was I?” Letty asked. “Oh, aye—the mysterious lady who visited Zennor. When the sun rose on Monday, she was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t till the next Sunday, which was Christmas Eve, that she returned. Now the villagers knew she was surely a mermaid, so they gawped as she entered St. Senara’s, trying to see the bewitched legs beneath her skirt.”
Dinah, who’d been helplessly staring at Letty’s exposed legs and feet, gulped and looked away. Letty laughed.
“Look all you want. I only wish I had a fish tail,” she said, smiling. “As before, the choir sang, and Matthew’s voice was wondrous to hear. He’d never looked more handsome. And as before, when the service ended, the villagers filed away to their homes, but Matthew disappeared with the lady on his arm.
“The vicar could have pleaded with his son,” Letty said, looking at Dinah. “He could have asked him to stay, not out of fear, but in the name of love. Do you think he did?”
Dinah shook her head.
“No, indeed. Drunk on his rectitude, the vicar disowned his son, saying he could not sing again in St. Senara’s choir until he renounced the mermaid and all appearance of sin.
“But time has a way of softening even the proudest heart. On Christmas morning, the vicar resolved to make it up with his son. To preach about forgiveness and let the boy sing. But Matthew had disappeared. His father and the villagers searched everywhere. Throughout the winter they scoured the cliffs and the beach of Zennor, but no trace of Matthew was ever found. Still, on clear nights, some hear a man’s beautiful voice carried on the waves, singing to the mermaid who pulled him under the sea. Sometimes what we call wickedness is true love.”
Lady Juliet snorted.
“Quiet, you.” As a Birdswing institution, Letty spoke to Lady Juliet however she pleased. Lady Juliet never complained. In fact, from what Ben could see, she enjoyed it.
“Love is mysterious, my girl,” Letty told Dinah. “Oft-times we are too wrapped up in our little customs and rules to recognize love, even at this time of year. Do you believe it?”
Dinah nodded eagerly.
She was still a child in many ways, Ben realized. Though she’d had an affair, been deserted, and given her out-of-wedlock baby to adoptive parents, withstanding those events didn’t necessarily guarantee emotional growth. Dinah’s stoicism often gave the illusion of maturity. Now he saw her as she really was: a sixteen-year-old captivated by a Cornish fairy tale.
“The vicar was grief-stricken,” Letty said, taking up the tale again. “How he wished he’d tried to reconcile with his son on Christmas Eve when he had the chance. He bitterly regretted condemning the lady without even trying to know her, so he decided to offer an olive branch.
“Remember how I told you when the lady visited St. Senara’s, she sat in the same pew twice? Well, the vicar paid homage to her choice. He carved the image of a mermaid into the pew. She was depicted in the classic style, naked and beautiful with a curved fish tail. A mirror in one hand and a comb in the other. Many assumed the vicar was playing a trick. Trying to lure her back on land to admire her portrait, as mermaids are known to be vain.
“But in truth, the vicar wanted nothing but a second chance to beg his son’s forgiveness.” A tear slipped down Letty’s cheek. “The Mermaid of Zennor is lovely. You can enter St. Senara’s to this day and see her image for yourself. But the vicar’s olive branch wasn’t accepted. He died alone. His son never returned.” Voice cracking on the last word, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
“Letty, are you quite all right?” Lady Juliet asked.
“Are you in pain?” Ben had heard Letty spin many tales, but she’d never broken down this way, no matter how sad the ending.
“Should I fetch a mug down to the Sheared Sheep for you, Mrs. Smith?” Dinah asked. “Bring you back some cider?”
Letty wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Does my doctor object?”
“Not at all,” Ben said.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Letty said weakly. “Perhaps you could fetch me back Guinness… for strength….”
Dinah glanced at Lady Juliet, who seemed to bite back a laugh. Reaching into h
er purse, she brought out a coin and passed it to the maid. Clearly Letty wasn’t too distraught to beg a taste of the good stuff.
“Sorry, my loves,” she said as Dinah carried her glass mug into the yard to wash it out under the pump. “I don’t know why I let myself be overcome. Well—I do. Forget that rosy rubbish I fed the girl. Christmas is all about the letdown.”
“I feel the same at times,” Ben said, examining the porcelain mermaid. “But Mrs. Parry was steadfast in her determination to get you this. And that’s something, isn’t it? A very old friend who knows you so well?”
“I’m off,” Dinah called from the yard.
With the young woman absent, Ben felt free to ask, “What’s the significance of the mermaid? Mrs. Parry said you had to have it, or she feared for your life.”
“Clearly, it’s a link to Letty’s past,” Lady Juliet announced. As a passionate admirer of Dr. Carl Jung, she was familiar with the tenets of psychoanalysis, occasionally going so far as to diagnose people who were within earshot. “A mermaid carries hidden psychological meaning. It symbolizes the free-spirited woman, who can travel at will and ignore the laws of polite society. Much as you did in your youth.”
“So I did,” Letty agreed without much enthusiasm. Ben and Lady Juliet exchanged glances. Clearly, the mermaid wasn’t simply a remembrance of her younger days.
“Speaking of ignoring the laws of polite society,” Lady Juliet said. “Surely you’ve proven your independence by squatting in this wretched hole long enough.”
Letty sucked in her breath, eyes flashing.
“Perhaps now isn’t the time—” Ben began, but Lady Juliet would have none of it.
“When is the time? When the poor woman lies comatose? Letty, we just sent Dinah outside to the pump next to your privy to wash out a mug in cold water. It’s quite selfish of you to live this way, knowing how it worries my mother. Allow me to send for plumbers. You can embark on 1940 with hot and cold taps, a kitchen sink, and a W.C. instead of a soup tureen under the bed.”
“I won’t be embarking on 1940,” Letty said stubbornly, taking the mermaid from Ben and tracing its face with a trembling finger. “I’m not strong enough to make the trip to Plymouth. Wasn’t strong enough last year, either. Time to pack it in.”
“Right! Perfect,” Lady Juliet declared. “Since you plan to expire in a matter of weeks, you can have no objection to me getting the plumbers round. Mother will be over the moon. As for making your yearly trip to Plymouth, I should think that if you’ll put off meeting your maker, another chance will come before you know it.”
“What’s this about Plymouth?” Ben asked.
“She knows.” Letty pointed at Lady Juliet.
“I know far less than I’d like,” she admitted. “I know that each winter, you take the train to Plymouth sometime after All Saints Day and don’t return for a day or so. It seems like something of a ritual. I’ve seen you go bedecked like a duchess, and come back weighed down with presents for the village. I’ve seen you go on two canes, your coat buttoned over a house dress, and come back on a stretcher, down for the count till spring. But I’ve never known why. The rumor used to be, your amour lived in the Barbican.”
“So to speak.” Letty sat up straighter. It seemed that after sobbing, asking for Guinness, and threatening to die, she was ready to talk about what was really on her mind. “It’s my boy, Jacky.”
“Your son lives in Plymouth?” Ben remembered what Mrs. Parry had said about the dark-eyed baby Letty had brought with her to Birdswing.
“He’s buried in the Stonehouse cemetery. That is to say, his name is carved on a plaque there, next to the names of six other fishermen. They were lost at sea in the month of December.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ben said. He glanced at Lady Juliet, but she avoided his eye. That was what frustrated him the most, being out of sync with her. From the moment they’d met, they’d clashed, critiqued one another, and teased one another, but they’d always known themselves to be on the same team. Now their pieces had been dragged to the board’s starting line, and neither would advance until one of them was willing to throw the dice.
“I’d like to hear about Jacky. What about you, Lady Juliet?” he asked, touching her shoulder.
“I—I’d like that, too.” Her gaze fluttered down, held there for a moment, then darted back up to see if he was still looking. When he smiled, an encouraging blush crept up her cheek.
“Jacky was a sweet baby and a good boy,” Letty said fondly. “Never a cross word to me, and no more mischief than usual. Handsome, like his father, but kindly, like my old dad, thank the Lord. He was twenty-two when he was called to Glory. Bad enough to lose him so young. But on the day his boat was lost, we hadn’t spoken for a year.”
“Someone told me you fell out when he went to sea,” Lady Juliet said.
“I wasn’t happy about it,” Letty admitted, shifting under the covers in what looked like a vain attempt to get comfortable. “I wanted to keep him close, in Birdswing. But he heard the call of the sea. Apprenticed on a schooner out of Plymouth. There he met a girl on the docks—you can imagine the sort. People thought me rough and common as fleas, spinning tales in pubs and drifting from village to village. But I was a bard, not one of those dock girls.
“How I despised them,” she went on. “Forever fiddling with their hair, checking their lipstick in a mirror, calling and waving to sailors. Bad enough that Jacky chose to walk out with such a— a person. When he told me they were to be wed, I forbid it.”
“I suppose any mum would have done the same,” Ben said.
“Oh, yes, I had God on my side,” Letty agreed. “Or so I thought. She was a hussy at best, an out-and-out harlot at worst. Not that Jacky listened to my opinion. He stood up with her that Sunday next. I didn’t go. And when he brought her round to this very doorstep, I refused to open the door. That was the last time I saw him. Watching from my window as he walked away.
“At the time I was quite pleased with myself. I wanted my son to suffer in silence. To eat his heart out, and leave her in due course, just like his father left me. Aren’t we perverse, the way we try to alleviate our suffering by transferring it to others? I see now, it wasn’t for me to judge Jacky’s wife. All I was meant to do was offer kindness and understanding. I gave them neither.”
“He knew you loved him,” Ben said firmly.
“No son doubts his mother’s love,” Lady Juliet agreed.
“Oh, yes, lift the mad old bat’s spirits.” Letty laughed, picking up the porcelain mermaid again. “Every year since Jacky was lost, I carry an image of the Mermaid of Zennor to Plymouth and give it to the sea. A sketch, a watercolor, a toy. It’s daft, I know. But it’s only through stories that I understand the world. The vicar wanted to make peace with the siren who took his son. So do I.”
“How many years since Jacky was lost?” Ben asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Well. This is none of my business, of course, but have you tried to trace his widow? After so long, she might welcome the chance to know you. Perhaps there’s even a grandchild.”
“I don’t have to trace her. She’s with him.” Letty sighed.
Ben and Lady Juliet exchanged glances again. “You mean she was on the ship when it went down?”
“No. A month after his ship went down, she walked to the cliffs and threw herself into Jennycliff Bay. Some picnickers saw her fall. She didn’t surface. Her body never washed ashore.” Letty put the mermaid back on her nightstand. “Those first years, I journeyed to Plymouth in memory of my boy. Now, I journey in memory of her, too. Toward the end, the trip hurt me in body as well as soul, but I never let the pain win. Now, with my legs crippled and a war underway, I’m beaten. I wish….”
The words “I wish” fell on Ben with unexpected power. After reluctantly giving his promise to Mr. Ainsel, he’d put it out of his thoughts. Now it returned to him with fresh urgency. “You wish what?”
“I wish someone would go
to Plymouth for me, and place the mermaid by Jacky’s stone. Place it, and say a prayer that he forgives me—him and his wife.”
Ben took a deep breath. He had neither the time nor the inclination. He’d certainly shaken off any childish fear of Mr. Ainsel and his Brothers Grimm-style bargain. But he could grant the wish, if he was willing to inconvenience himself.
“Right. I’ll do it.”
Eyes widening, Letty sat up taller in bed. “Dr. Bones, do you mean it? Don’t tease a dying woman.”
“You’re not dying. And I’m not teasing. The trains will be booked with soldiers on leave and kiddies visiting their parents, but Plymouth isn’t too far for me to drive,” Ben said. Actually, the city was more than two hours away, and petrol was rationed. But as the physician responsible for a wide circle of the West Country, he got an extra share. “I’ll go Sunday next.”
“Sunday? But that’s Christmas Eve.”
“Not till sunset. And I’ll be back before then,” Ben said. “It’s the only day besides Christmas itself that I have no patients booked. I’m happy to make the journey for you.”
“Dr. Bones,” Lady Juliet said, “you never fail to impress me.”
“Don’t puff up the poor man’s ego,” Letty said. “Someone must fetch me a map so I can draw him a route. Can’t have him blundering all over Plymouth. Unless—you know Stonehouse graveyard, do you not, your ladyship?”
“Of course.”
“Then you must go with Dr. Bones and guide him. Can’t have him getting trapped by the blackout, or he’ll miss his first Christmas in Birdswing.”
“You enjoy arranging other people’s time, don’t you?” Lady Juliet said.
“It’s a privilege of the old to make demands on the young,” Letty replied, unrepentant. “As a little girl, you always talked of traveling. Tramped over hill and dale with your old dad’s compass. Now you can visit sweet Jacky’s marker and place the mermaid where the water will take it.”