by Nunn, Kayte
‘I am uncertain, mistress,’ he replied. ‘I have not yet consulted the order book.’
‘I should very much like to have this for myself,’ she said. ‘I shall require a new gown for the upcoming Oxleigh cotillion and this is an ingenious design that pleases me greatly.’ High colour flushed her cheeks and her eyes glittered at the prospect.
‘Tell me, Rowan, you have knowledge of plants and the like. The foxglove I recognise, but what is the purple flower?’
Rowan hesitated, then spoke up. ‘There are two, mistress. Belladonna and monkshood. They are powerful plants and a most fearful poison, especially when combined as they are here.’
Caroline laughed, and the sound chilled Rowan to the bone. ‘What a novel idea! I’ll warrant that no one has thought of such a thing before now.’
‘Yes, mistress.’ Rowan wanted to warn her of the danger she could see, for dark shadows had once again gathered in the room, though the sun shone brightly outside. She dared not reveal the full extent of her doubts for fear of suspicion falling on herself, and in any case, did not think her mistress would choose to believe her, for she gazed upon the fabric as if transfixed.
‘I have no doubt that Mr Hollander will be amenable. Be sure to put it to one side for me.’ She pulled her hand away with some reluctance.
‘Very good, mistress,’ Jeremiah said, retrieving the fabric and wrapping it again.
Later that afternoon, Rowan found herself back in the shop, which was closed for the dinner break. She wanted to see it once more, to reassure herself that it was merely a length of fabric, that she had been fanciful in imagining its sinister power. It lay on the counter, and as she unfurled the wrapping, she caught her breath. It was even more alluring than she remembered. She could see a tiny spider in a corner of the pattern, a beetle in another. Scarcely believing what she was doing, she grasped the pair of shears that lay on the counter and carefully snipped a strip about four inches wide from the end of the cloth, severing a spider’s leg but capturing the belladonna and foxgloves. She replaced the shears, wrapped up the parcel and stuffed the purloined silk in her pocket. Hurrying from the room, she left the house and walked briskly in the direction of the millpond, for guilt at her action had settled in her stomach like a stone and she wished to take herself far from the house. If she were to be found out …
‘Mistress Hollander wishes to see you.’ Alice eyed Rowan from across the kitchen, and Rowan, who had returned from emptying the slops from the water closet, felt a fresh surge of the guilt that had kept her awake much of the night before.
Had her mistress discovered the theft? Was she to be thrown onto the street? Sent before the Salisbury assizes? She could not believe that she had been so foolish as to steal even the smallest snippet of fabric. She half-thought that she had taken the scissors to it in the hope that she might be able to work a spell to lessen its power, for she sensed a dark magic about it. However, the truth was that she wasn’t entirely certain why she had taken it – the fabric seemed to wield a power over her that she could not begin to explain. It was as if the devil himself had cast his favour upon it.
When she had washed her hands in the scullery and tidied her hair away under her cap, she ascended the stairs to the morning room, approaching with trepidation. She stood near the door and gave a slight cough to alert her mistress to her presence.
‘Ah, Rowan, come in, please. I have an errand for you.’ Caroline smiled and Rowan’s racing heart slowed. She found she was able to breathe again.
‘Yes, mistress.’
‘Take the fabric that arrived yesterday and deliver it to the mantua-maker. There is no time to waste, for it is a matter of weeks until the cotillion. Tell her that I shall call upon her forthwith to be fitted.’
Rowan hesitated, knowing that Jeremiah would not yet be at the shop.
‘Get along then, girl. You have my permission to retrieve the parcel. I shall inform Jeremiah as to its whereabouts when I see him next.’
Rowan bobbed her understanding. ‘Yes, mistress.’
When she slipped into the darkened shop, shadows once more seemed to chase her as she drew near to the shelves at the back. She scanned them for the fabric. At first, she could not see it, but then there was the crumpled, refolded paper on the top shelf. She reached up to retrieve it, staggering under the weight, for it was far heavier than she had expected and she had to hold it in her arms almost as one might carry an infant.
It was only a few yards to Mistress Pennyfeather’s further along the high street. The mantua-maker’s door was closed, and Rowan had to rap her knuckles hard upon it several times before it was answered.
‘I’m come from the merchant’s house, from Mistress Hollander,’ she said to the young girl who opened the door. ‘She bade me deliver this to Mistress Pennyfeather.’
‘’Tis awful early,’ the girl replied. ‘But you will find her already at work. You’d best come in.’
Rowan followed her into a room at the back of the house, where the mantua-maker sat, a dark vessel amid a sea of colourful silks.
Rowan explained the reason for her errand and placed the parcel on a table, her fingers trailing along it, reluctant to let it go, for its hold on her was tenacious. She remembered again the strip she had hidden under her mattress.
‘She will need to come and see me to be fitted without delay,’ said the mantua-maker without ceasing her stitching. ‘For I already have several other gowns to complete and she has left me with little time in which to work.’
Rowan left, promising that her mistress would call in a few hours’ time.
The mantua-maker worked day and night in the weeks leading up to the cotillion, for she was one of only two in the town and almost every woman attending the annual event had ordered a new gown. The town was a prosperous one, and each merchant desired to show off his good fortune, and what better way to do it than on the back of his wife?
Hollander’s Fine Silks was also awash with customers, and both Jeremiah and Mr Hollander were kept busy supplying orders. ‘I fear we shall have not a scrap of silk left to sell if this continues,’ Jeremiah complained to Rowan as she swept the floors one morning.
‘But if trade is brisk, then that surely is a good thing?’ she replied.
He gave her a thin smile. ‘One would hope so.’
Her mistress’s gown was delivered early one afternoon. Caroline had gone out to call on a friend, and so was not the first to see it. Together – for the package weighed a great deal – Rowan and Alice carried it up to her chamber, laying it on the bed and unwrapping it.
When they had straightened it out flat against the coverlet, they both stood back, speechless. The fabric caught the light, the silver thread glistening like the gossamer of a spider’s web and the bright purple and pink flowers stark against the cream background. The skirt was full, with a long train of fabric at the back that fell in folds from the shoulders. The waist was considerably larger than Caroline’s other gowns, for she was now well into her confinement, but the bodice had been made with extra panels that could be removed once she returned to her normal size. ‘I will not let that fact stop me from going,’ Rowan had heard her declare to her husband as he questioned whether she might think again on her plans to attend the cotillion. ‘I promise I shall begin my lying-in the very next day,’ she had pleaded. ‘But let me have a little fun first.’ Patrick Hollander, for once, had not attempted to exert his will over her.
‘It is as if it carries a light of its own,’ Alice breathed, once they had regarded it for quite some time.
‘Look, here,’ Rowan said. ‘The curve of the flowers is like that of the bodice; how clever.’
It was several moments before they could tear themselves away, but a bellow from Prudence had Alice scurrying down the back stairs towards the kitchen.
Rowan lingered a few moments longer, mesmerised. Then, before she knew what she was doing, she had untied the strings of her apron and loosened the fasteners on the front of her grey work
dress, letting it drop to the floor.
As she stepped into the new gown, a shudder coursed through her. She knew she would certainly be beaten if she were caught, perhaps worse, and she was fearful of the power of the flowers, but she could do nothing to stop herself. Rowan was a similar height to her mistress, but slightly broader, and although the fabric stretched tightly across her shoulders and she did not have panniers at her hips, the gown fitted tolerably well, though she had to hold in the extra fabric at the waist. A small sigh escaped her lips, for the feel of the silk on her bare arms was deliciously cool in the warm room. The lace at the elbows and neck frothed like the cow parsley that grew in the hedgerows. Clad in such a fine gown, Rowan was a different person, a girl almost without blemish.
She took the few steps to the looking glass and pulled her cap from her head. As she removed the pins keeping it in place, her white-blonde hair fell about her shoulders, catching the light like the silver thread in the gown.
She turned to see the effect of the sack-back and its waterfall of fabric that cascaded from the shoulders and as she did so caught a shadow in a corner of the glass. A feeling of doom, as sudden and unexpected as a thunderclap, gripped her. The gown no longer seemed so alluring, for it was as if it were almost trying to possess her, as if a malevolent spirit were at work.
With trembling fingers, she unhooked the bodice and stepped out of the skirts, her fingernail catching on one of the tiny black spiders woven into the design. It was all she could do not to tear the material from her body in her haste to be free of it. She knew then that there was evil in the gown, whether in the design or the weaving of it, or both.
Should she warn her mistress? She knew she had little hope of convincing her to wear a different gown. And would it merely cause her to question exactly what kind of foresight her maid possessed, to claim that evil had been woven into such beautiful fabric?
Rowan carefully spread out the dress on the bed, smoothing out any wrinkles before hurriedly dressing in her own clothes. Never had her mousy wool skirts offered such reassurance.
By the week’s end, Rowan had managed to convince herself that her fears were the result of an overwrought imagination, and that it was foolish to believe that evil could be captured in threads of silk, a design of flowers – no matter how deadly those flowers might be.
On the Saturday afternoon, Alice helped her mistress prepare for the cotillion, while earlier Rowan had laid out her master’s favourite waistcoat – the one with the orange flowers that he had worn on the day he hired her – and a clean pair of breeches. Hearing a commotion in the passageway, she slipped from the kitchen to catch a glimpse of them as they left the house. Even in the dim light, the gown glowed and Rowan saw her mistress’s face lit up with excitement. Patrick Hollander, too, gazed upon his wife admiringly. ‘Only the best for my wife. You shall be the belle of the ball, my dear.’
Caroline laughed, ‘Oh, hush now. With nary a waist to show for it, I think that unlikely.’ But Rowan could see that she was pleased nonetheless.
A few minutes after her master and mistress had departed, Rowan took the opportunity to slip out the back door and along the passage that ran alongside the house next door. The evening was a fine one, and the sun had only just begun to set. The lively chatter of birds flying home to roost filled the air, which was scented with apple blossom from the trees at the bottom of the garden.
She hurried towards the river, where she had arranged to meet Tommy, for as well as wanting to see him, she had to share the burden of Alice’s misfortune with someone.
He gathered her into his arms and she returned the embrace, savouring the feeling of comfort she found there. ‘I spoke to Alice and she admitted that she had been lying when she said that you were responsible.’
‘Why would she do such a thing in the first place? She is no better than a strumpet … begging your pardon.’
‘I do not think it is that simple,’ Rowan said.
‘Who is it, then?’
Rowan hesitated, drew away from his arms. ‘’Tis Master Hollander.’
Tommy let out a breath. ‘What is she to do?’
‘She asked for my assistance …’ Rowan bit her lip.
‘Your assistance?’ he asked. ‘But what …’ Then the realisation of her words began to dawn upon him. ‘’Tis not right. That’s meddling with nature, that is.’
‘What was I supposed to do? If I did not help her she would be thrown out, end up in the workhouse or worse, and she could make all manner of accusations against me; I know she is capable of such a thing. And then I would most likely be dismissed as well, for Master Hollander will not tolerate even a breath of such trouble. I am bound up in it.’
‘But you would surely find work elsewhere,’ he said, reaching for her hands.
‘I am not so certain of that – some in the town have already come to suspect my knowledge, and it wouldn’t take much for them to shun me entirely, to place the blame on me for disrupting the household. Anyway, it is too late – ’tis done.’
He regarded her for a while, making up his mind on the matter. Rowan held her breath.
‘I’ll stand by you no matter what happens,’ he said eventually.
She breathed out and smiled gratefully at him. ‘Tommy Dean, you are a true gentleman.’
‘Unlike some who were born to that station,’ he said darkly.
THIRTY-TWO
Now
Thea couldn’t believe she’d agreed to it. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed utterly preposterous. Exorcism? People – and not just people, but ministers of the cloth – really did such things? This wasn’t the Middle Ages, for heaven’s sake, it was 2019. Superstition should have long been cast off. And yet, there was a small part of her that wondered – hoped, even – that it might just work, that the inexplicable, inconvenient and downright creepy happenings would stop and they could all get on with the business of school life. Sometimes you don’t need to see the evidence, to have all the facts, to believe in it, she told herself. You simply have to trust.
Now, half an hour before Fiona was due to arrive, Thea sat in the empty house, listening to its creaks and groans, the gurgle of hot water pipes and the whistle of the wind as it rattled the windows in their frames. Her father would have scoffed at it all. She could hear his voice. ‘Superstitious nonsense,’ he would have said. Until recently, she would have agreed with him.
Earlier in the week, the fishpond had been drained, the water replaced and the dead plants removed. Thea had made reference to it in an email to Dr Fox but she did not mention her suspicions regarding Mr Battle. All she had was his ongoing animosity and Joy’s report that he had proclaimed the girls wouldn’t last the full school year. If she were to accuse the porter, she would need concrete evidence of any action on his part, not merely hearsay. The pest inspector’s report had come back as inconclusive, but at her insistence they had returned and sprayed Thea’s study anyway. She’d not been back in the room since.
Startled by the knock on the door, even though it was one she had been expecting, Thea leapt up to answer it.
When Fiona entered the house, wearing the traditional long, black cassock and white collar of her calling, she unzipped a small holdall and removed a rounded metal pot that had chains attached to its centre. ‘A thurible,’ she explained. ‘We use it to burn incense and cleanse the space. Oh, knickers!’
‘What?’ Had Thea heard correctly? Knickers?
‘Thought for a moment I’d forgotten the incense. But here it is.’ She beamed back at Thea. ‘Be assured that I will touch nothing, either with it or my hands.’
‘Is it just you?’ Thea asked. ‘You mentioned there would be some others to help?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, they’ll be here later,’ said Fiona merrily before disappearing into the depths of the house, leaving a musky trail of incense in her wake.
She was gone for more than an hour, moving from room to room, and Thea caught a glance of her swinging the thuri
ble as if in a dance, muttering what sounded like a chant. Soon, the house reeked of sandalwood and smoke. Thea glanced at her watch. There were still several hours before the Dame was due back from her afternoon off and the girls would return after prep and dinner. She hoped she would have time to air the place before then.
Thea stayed in the sitting room, pretending to read, but really waiting for Fiona to finish. The whole thing had an air of unreality about it. The incense and the chanting all seemed faintly ridiculous and amateur, and yet she wanted to believe that it would work, with an intensity that surprised her. As Fiona moved into the kitchen, Thea was unable to stand the tension any longer. She went to investigate, finding the back door open.
In the dusky light, she saw the curate standing at the far side of the parterre and, almost hidden behind the trees at the back of the garden, she was surprised to see the Dame, shrouded by a tattered yet voluminous cape, ever-present glasses shading her eyes. She was about to go to her, to try to explain, but then three women, whom Thea had never seen before, appeared through the back gate.
‘What – ’ she began.
Fiona held up a hand for silence and waved the women towards her. ‘Join us. Thea, over there, if you please.’ She indicated a position further around the parterre, and Thea, still no clearer as to what was going on, did as she was bid. She reached her position and only then did it dawn on her where each of them was standing. Five women. Five points to the pentacle.
As she looked over Fiona’s shoulder, Thea saw the Dame loitering in the shadows. What must she be making of it all? she wondered, but had no chance to speak to her as Fiona began to chant again, softly under her breath. Thea couldn’t make out the words, didn’t know if it was prayer or incantation. She stood there fighting the urge to leave, to run as far away as she could from the place, for she didn’t understand any of it. It was so far from the cut-and-dried facts that she was used to, that she believed in.