Bone China

by Laura Purcell

  ‘You need to drink this,’ she said, proffering the jug. ‘I have sweetened it with honey, so there is no need to pull that face.’

  ‘What’s it for, Louise?’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘That mark I saw on your hand. It is the worm. We need to purge you of it.’

  He held out both palms to her and turned them over. ‘Don’t trouble yourself. See? I don’t have it any more.’

  ‘Not on that hand, but what about the rest of your body?’

  He smirked. ‘Do you want to check?’

  ‘Why must you be so—’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he laughed, sitting down upon his cane chair. ‘There’s no sport in this place. Let me joke and look at a pretty girl for a minute, would you?’

  ‘I have not the time,’ she replied shortly.

  His smile faded, and his face became solemn once more. ‘You can sense him, can’t you?’

  ‘Whom?’

  ‘Death.’

  Louise swallowed. She did recognise this strange, charged atmosphere: she had felt it while watching Kitty sleep. A presence, where none was to be seen.

  But that was folly. They were all starting to sound like Creeda.

  ‘I’ve never been white-livered,’ Harry went on. ‘Death don’t scare me much. Things look brighter. Livelier. They do, when you know you’re going to lose them all.’ He shrugged. ‘But I’m stuck here in this hole. Time’s running out and the only beauty I get to look at is the ocean … and you.’

  She glanced away, touched in spite of herself. ‘This cave is better than a prison, Harry. You should count yourself lucky.’

  ‘I do,’ he said softly.

  His wooden cup lay in the corner on the floor. She bent and scooped it up, filling it with posset from the jug.

  ‘Here.’

  Harry grimaced but took the drink, their fingers touching briefly.

  ‘How are you so brave?’ he asked suddenly.

  She snatched her hand away. ‘What?’

  ‘For a maid. You …’ For the first time, he appeared unsure of himself. He lowered his eyes to the posset. ‘Down here, day after day. Don’t you fear you might … catch it?’

  Her muscles stiffened as she remembered Papa’s cough. But healthy people did cough occasionally. What with the smoke, and the stench, it was perfectly natural …

  ‘I am not sure that I can catch consumption, Harry,’ she sighed. ‘I was the only one of my siblings who did not sicken. Perhaps I have a resilience to it. And there are even physicians who say that consumption is not infectious at all, but a tendency we are born with.’

  He shook his head. ‘Hell of a risk to take.’

  ‘Well, I am not “white-livered” either.’

  Harry grinned. ‘No, you an’t.’

  Perhaps something of her disquiet showed on her face, for Harry became intensely interested in his drink. She watched him to make sure he swallowed it all.

  His forehead was still marked with bruises, and his nose crooked at an angle, but for all that he was peculiarly attractive, marked with the beauty of a dying thing. Sharp cheekbones, enhanced by the wasting. Wine-red lips and burning eyes.

  His throat bobbed as he downed the final drops of the medicine.

  ‘Not so bad for the rest of them, is it?’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘They’ve lived. Especially Seth. I would have liked to see battle. Had a wife. Maybe a brat to bounce, too.’

  ‘There was little chance of you achieving any of those things in gaol,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Ah, but I wouldn’t have been in there forever. A brand and six years: that was my sentence.’

  ‘You might not be here forever, Harry.’ She took the cup gently from his hand. ‘I will admit the treatments have not progressed as we planned, but you are looking stronger than the other patients. If I had to place a wager on a man likely to survive … it would be you.’

  He did not smile. Did not even look at her. ‘That’s kind of you, Miss Pinecroft. But I know where I’m headed.’

  ‘None of us can presume to know—’

  ‘You think it’s deep underground here,’ he said bitterly. ‘But it an’t. There’s another space, even darker, six feet under the soil. Who’s going to keep me safe from the worms then?’

  *

  Fire and water. Ernest possessed them both now. Flames capering, malicious and gleeful in the stone circle; a tripod above them, supporting the bowl of water and rosemary. Fire and water to rid yourself of fairies, of worms.

  They were banishing nothing. Only bringing memories back.

  Rosemary had been the scent of their wedding day. Her clothes smelt of it, her hair. She carried sprigs in her bouquet. ‘Rosemary to bind us,’ she had said.

  And they were bound, still.

  The water started to bubble, tinkling against the bowl like a fall of rain.

  He tore leaves of rosemary between his fingers and threw more in. Thought of the rosemary and the lavender he had used to conserve the three bodies until their burial. He had seen them laid in that churchyard himself, but he knew his family were not truly there. That was mere bones and flesh.

  They had been taken from him and yet … He felt them. Always. They were not gone, so where were they? He considered the ring on his finger, the remnants of them trapped behind glass. Just as he was. Seeing them, hearing them everywhere, never able to reach …

  It seemed his blue devils had finally won.

  One by one, he took up the pamphlets and treatises on the ground and fed them to the flames. Stray words stood out. Phthisis … Balsamic … corrects acrid Ichor … stuffed Bronchia … dissipates crude Tubercles … lungs strengthened with cold …

  Everything he thought he had known. How quickly it curled and blackened.

  Ash left to the wind.

  His cheeks burned from the heat. The scent of rosemary soared, spiralling towards the back of the cave. Cleansing. He wanted to bathe in it until every inch of guilt was scrubbed clean.

  He had been proud. Worse: headstrong. So cocksure and confident, telling Mopsy all would be well. Until he found himself dressed in black, staring glassy-eyed at the one surviving member of his family, he had not truly believed that he could fail.

  But now this business with Louise … Watching his own daughter outgrow him. She, a woman, more able, more perceptive. She put him to shame.

  He felt a desperate clenching inside, knowing she would slip through his fingers. No more would she raise her blue eyes to him with that trusting look of devotion and utter faith. He had failed her as thoroughly as the rest of them.

  The paper did not burn cleanly. Smoke puffed out, smothering the blackness. Pervading all. Sitting on his chest, heavy like clay.

  Somewhere, distantly, the cupping jars trilled. He had grown used to it now.

  Kneeling down, he took the last few scraps of paper, scrunched them into a ball and threw it into the heart of the flame. It uncurled, crackled.

  There was just one item left. A slim volume, bound in cloth. Ernest picked it up and brushed off the cover.

  Folklore.

  He had forgotten this. He must have gathered it in the great bundle from his desk.

  Another failure. Creeda was no better. She remained as convinced of the existence of fairies as ever. He envied her that certainty.

  Hesitantly, he held the book towards the flames. Pulled it back.

  He remembered that day in Falmouth. Yearned to be again the man who searched its stalls and purchased this book. A man focused on the future, envisioning a new horizon where consumption was no more.

  Much as he tried, he could not swallow the idea that it was truly over. How could it be that he had wanted it so much, worked so hard, and still not found the cure?

  He had believed greatness was within him. Still believed. It was his destiny to go where others would not. If only he could turn the key, unlock the answers …

  What was it Creeda had said? A new way of seeing.

  Er
nest raised his eyes, searching.

  He could see nothing through the smoke.

  Chapter 35

  Morning light stroked Louise’s closed eyelids. Sound crept back into her awareness: waves frisking, the squall of gulls. She had always risen from bed and dressed of her own accord, rather than waiting for a servant to wake her, but today she was weary.

  Watching Papa suffer tired her in a way nursing had never done. Sometimes she thought the bond between them ran so deep that she felt every one of his pains. Yet the way he looked at her recently, the strange, rapt expression of his eyes … It threatened to undo all that had been in the past. Losing that special relationship was a prospect more horrifying to her than any mortal disease. She could not part with him. Not Papa.

  Pompey shifted his weight where he lay at her feet. His first stirrings of impatience, reminding her it would soon be time for his food. Papa would be up from the caves, expecting his own breakfast, and she would have to accompany him back to that terrible scene … But Harry would be there.

  His smile.

  She found the energy to open her eyes.

  The blue dimity curtains were still closed around her bed, tinting the space with sapphire hues. Louise could take no joy in the effect. She felt as though she were drowning.

  She pushed herself up against the pillows and heard a rustling crunch. Pompey raised his head.

  ‘What …?’

  She reached behind her. Nothing. Her hand groped beneath the pillow, found something scratchy and rough.

  When she drew the object out, she saw it was part of an ash tree. A few twigs and their long, slender leaves. Pompey padded over and sniffed at them as she stared in tired bemusement.

  How had they got there? It could be no accident. They were neatly cut. Who would put … She sighed. Creeda, of course.

  Did she not have enough to concern her without the maid’s foolish tricks? No doubt it was well meant. She remembered now, speaking to Creeda on the day she arrived. How Creeda told her to put ash leaves under her pillow to dream of her future husband.

  ‘But I dreamt of nothing,’ she whispered to Pompey, handing him the twigs to chew. ‘Nothing at all.’

  It did not signify. She had never really expected, never wanted … She must be very tired still. There was moisture in her eyes, and a dead weight in her stomach.

  Angry with herself, she pushed her plait over her shoulder. It was time to stop moping. With more force than was necessary, she threw open the curtain to the bed.

  Screamed.

  Her father stood there.

  Or something like her father. A cruel, brutal imitation of him.

  He wore no stock, no waistcoat. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows. Dirt and dried blood mottled his arms. There was no pretence at fastening back his hair now; the ribbon had vanished.

  ‘They were taken!’ he cried.

  Pompey growled.

  ‘Taken,’ he muttered again, putting his fingers to his lips. The nails were bitten and tipped with dirt. ‘It makes sense. They were getting better. They were getting better.’

  Tentatively, Louise climbed out of bed and placed a hand on his shoulder. He was burning up. ‘Papa, you are unwell. You must rest. Go to bed. I will see to the men.’

  ‘Men!’ he scoffed. Hectic colour suffused his cheeks. Beside them, the rest of his face was as white as marble. ‘Are they? I made them well …’

  Making him sit on the bed, Louise put on her spectacles, threw a cloak over her shift and pulled on yesterday’s stockings. Her hair was quickly bound up and concealed beneath a cap – it would have to do. Jamming her feet into some slippers, she put her head around the door and bellowed for Creeda.

  Papa was still mumbling. ‘A switch. That must be it. They waited, waited until I cured them, and then traded the men. I succeeded, but …’

  Louise went to him and clasped his hands. There were tremors in them. She had heard rambling like this before. Not the exact words, but the tenor. Any minute now, she thought, he will cough.

  She could not endure it. Could not even let the understanding enter her mind – she held it at a distance, hovering on the brink of a precipice.

  ‘The sudden decline …’ he went on, addressing no one. ‘And Louise. Louise said the mark vanished from Harry’s hand.’

  ‘Louise is right here, Papa.’ She knew he did not hear her.

  Both Creeda and Gerren appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Dr Pinecroft is unwell.’ She was amazed how serene and authoritative she sounded. ‘I need you to put him to bed and make him something to eat. Beef tea, if you can.’

  Papa shook his shaggy head. ‘No! No food.’

  ‘You must try, dear Papa.’

  He broke into a wheezing cough.

  Louise closed her eyes. Harry had asked if she was afraid of catching consumption; she realised that the answer had always been no. This was what she had feared; this was the worst that could possibly happen.

  And it had.

  ‘I will care for him,’ she said, her voice firm despite the tears that started to flow. ‘I will make him well. Gerren, fetch me … But the men!’ She gasped. ‘They are down there in the caves, suffering …’

  ‘They switched them while I slept …’ Papa choked.

  It was like being torn in half. What would Papa want her to do? Although it revolted her every feeling, she knew. He would say that the men were his work, his good name. He would desire them and his reputation to be saved above all else.

  ‘I must go to them,’ she breathed. ‘If only for a little while. Watch over him, Gerren. Promise me you will run down to fetch me if there is the slightest change in his condition.’

  Gerren hesitated. ‘To the fairy cave?’

  ‘Promise me.’

  He nodded. ‘Aye. For ee, missus. Anything.’

  She took one last look at Papa, sitting deadly still beneath Pompey’s nosing and fussing. Then she ran from the door and down the stairs as fast as her feet would carry her.

  *

  The beach wore a different aspect that morning. Louise felt she was seeing it for the first time. The grey rocks, hazed with moss and the droppings of birds, were ancient, unyielding as death. How arrogant it was for a mortal to strive against nature’s order. How utterly hopeless. The sick would die; the tide would come in.

  Her slippers squelched on wet sand. That terrible cough reverberated off stone, warning her away. But even if she returned to the house, it would be there, awaiting her.

  She stepped into the cave’s shadow. It reminded her of a tomb. She had taken only four steps inside when Harry appeared out of the darkness and seized her shoulders. ‘Louise!’

  This time, she did not correct him.

  He looked half wild. The bruises on his face had paled and the swelling around his nose was reduced, but that only served to display his panic more clearly. The dilated pupils, the strained brow: everything was suddenly and achingly human.

  ‘The doctor, he just—’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘He just upped and left!’ Harry exclaimed. ‘Left them to die.’

  ‘He did no such thing. I am here, I will do whatever needs to be done.’

  He released her shoulders, seeming to notice that she was not properly dressed. It was not a leer that crossed his face, but something softer, something made of confusion and longing.

  She wrapped the cloak more tightly about her. ‘Who ails?’

  ‘Tim’s blisters have gone green. The stink … And Chao. You can’t …’ He placed one hand on the back of his head. ‘Louise, I heard the rattle in his chest. I think he’s done for.’

  ‘There must be some way.’

  ‘I cleaned them up as best I could and gave them that – what is it? The white stuff.’

  ‘Calomel?’

  ‘Just a bit of it in brandy.’

  She saw the misery of the last few hours etched into him, but it was comforting to know she was no longer alone in her torment.

/>   ‘You have been helping them,’ she realised. ‘Looking after the others.’

  ‘I told you, I’m a fence. Not a monster. But I don’t know the things you do. They need a nurse.’

  Grabbing her hand, he led her across the slippery rocks towards the hut that had belonged to Michael. Michael was not in it now. All four men lay stretched out on the stone.

  ‘Couldn’t keep running between huts,’ Harry explained. ‘And the smell – I thought they might be better where the air could blow it away?’

  She squeezed his hand, sensing his need for reassurance. ‘You did right.’

  But who could say whether that was true?

  Bending beside Seth, she remembered his words about the Seven Years’ War and wondered if there had ever been a battlefield equal to this. Tim had lost complete control of his bowels. None of them seemed to recognise her. Fever shook their limbs, while their eyes were vague and glassy. Seeping wounds – the wounds her father had purposefully inflicted upon them – showed the burnt crust of gangrene.

  For the first time, she felt thoroughly powerless. There were too many of them and she did not know where to begin. She could bathe their brows, she could give them water – but that was all. Harry might not be a physician, but his instinct was right. Death had made his mark.

  From nowhere, Seth’s gnarly hand shot up and seized her cloak. He pulled her close, so close that she could taste his bitter breath. She must have screamed, for the sound ricocheted through the cave.

  ‘Louise.’ She did not realise he had known her name. ‘Louise, don’t let me die.’

  The rocks, the patients – everything seemed to blur, as if someone had removed her spectacles. These were not Seth’s words – they were Kitty’s. The same look, the same words, the same inexorable cough. She was going to faint.

  ‘Let her go!’

  Hands grabbed beneath her armpits, just in time.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. She could not hear her own voice, so she said it again, louder. ‘I am so terribly sorry.’

  It was like a magic lantern projection: one moment she was swooning against Harry, the next someone had changed the slide and she was bent over on a cane chair, her forehead pressed to her knees. Her spectacles sat crooked on her nose.