The Silk House : A Novel (2020)

by Nunn, Kayte

  Nothing.

  Then, as the beam shone on the left-hand side she noticed a small side gate cut into the main gates. It was obscured during the day, when the gates were drawn back against the wall. She drew closer. It too was fastened with a heavy padlock, but as she shone the torch on it, she noticed a symbol. The quiver of arrows. Might it be? She reached in her pocket for her keys and selected the one with the arrows on it, the one she now realised she had been unable to find a lock for. She nearly cheered when it slipped smoothly into the chamber and she was able to pass through the gate, into the school grounds without further mishap. She hurried onwards, leaving the padlock unsecured for her return.

  Thea marched along the path, zig-zagging to avoid the worst of the puddles. The rain still came down in gusty sheets, blowing sideways onto her glasses and making it hard to see where she was going, but she carried on regardless. Her jeans had long become soaked but her jacket at least was proving to be resistant to the downpour. The tin knocked painfully against her thigh as she walked, a reminder, not that she needed one, of the task ahead.

  Soon she was on the playing fields – the hockey pitches where Gareth had tried and failed to best her and the girls only weeks before. These same pitches were used as tennis courts and a cricket oval in summer, the place her father had spoken of so fondly.

  A single floodlight had been left on, illuminating part of the fields, but Thea stayed in the shadows, not risking the possibility of CCTV cameras scanning the grounds.

  She stood for a moment, feeling the rain trickle into the gap of her collar and down her front. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the tin. It was a plain grey cylinder about the size of a small telescope, and nothing about its exterior gave a hint as to the contents. She wrapped her hands around the smooth surface, raised it upwards and unscrewed the lid.

  Whenever she thought of her father, love, frustration, regret, hurt and anger were bound up together, a tangled skein that, she knew now, would probably never be unravelled.

  Steadying her shaking hands, she angled the tin and shook it towards the earth. A greyish-brown powdery rubble streamed out and immediately disappeared into the grass, exactly as she had hoped. Merely dust, returned to the earth. A tear slid down her cheek and mingled with the rain on her face. Her father had wanted to toughen Thea and her sister against the world, make them warriors. He hadn’t quite succeeded.

  The rain continued to pour down, unrelenting, as the last of the ashes sifted from the tin. She tipped it over and shook it to be sure, then held it up, collecting rainwater before rinsing it clean until not a speck of dust remained.

  It was done. She was soaked through to her skin, her jacket having finally succumbed to the rain, but she barely noticed it. The weight that had pressed down on her for so many months had dissolved along with his ashes: as though she had released herself from the past.

  She didn’t notice a dark figure across the pitch until she heard the shout.

  ‘Thea!’

  Gareth, dressed in waterproofs, his face obscured by an umbrella, was coming towards her.

  ‘Christ on a bike,’ she muttered to herself. The last person she wanted to see. ‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed when he reached her. Rain dripped off the collar of his jacket and his eyelashes had clumped together like starbursts.

  ‘I was just about to ask you that. I saw you leave the house. I was having a beer in the pub down the street.’

  ‘And you followed me?’ She was incredulous.

  ‘Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.’ He held up a hand. ‘I admit I was curious as to what might bring you out on such a foul night, but it wasn’t my intention to scare you.’

  ‘Well, you did,’ she said, bristling.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He held out the umbrella towards her, a peace offering. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. I waited until you’d finished. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.’

  She eyed him warily.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here before we both catch our death of cold.’

  ‘I don’t need your help,’ she said stubbornly.

  He grinned and was about to answer when another shout echoed across the fields. Thea looked up. ‘Battle!’

  The porter was moving at a not inconsiderable speed, scuttling towards them like a demented crab. Thea blinked. She’d no idea he was capable of moving so fast.

  ‘Oi!’ he shouted again. ‘What do you two think you’re doing?’

  Gareth grabbed Thea’s hand. ‘Quick! Before he catches us.’

  ‘How did you get in here?’ Mr Battle shouted as they began to flee. She could almost feel the waves of disapproval and annoyance radiating off him.

  Thea didn’t have time to think. She followed Gareth as if by blind instinct, a bubble of laughter welling up at the ridiculousness of it all. She was a responsible teacher, not a wayward schoolgirl. She turned her head and through the smear of her glasses saw the porter coming closer. ‘You were the one who gave me the key!’ she called, before nearly doubling over with mirth.

  They raced towards the gate, leaving him gasping in their wake. Thea nearly ignored the next shout, but she halted at its note of pain and turned to see the porter clutching at his chest. ‘Wait!’ she called to Gareth. ‘I think something’s wrong.’

  Gareth stopped a few paces from her. ‘We’d better see if he’s all right.’

  Thea watched Mr Battle sink to his knees. Without a moment’s hesitation, Gareth sprinted back towards him, Thea following close behind. ‘We’ll lay him on his side,’ he said, shielding the porter with his umbrella as Thea caught up. ‘I don’t like the look of him.’

  Mr Battle seemed so much smaller, lying helpless on the ground. Even in the semi-darkness, Thea could see that his face was an unhealthy grey. She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialled.

  ‘It’s nine-nine-nine,’ Gareth reminded her.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, feeling a rush of guilt that she was the cause of all this.

  Less than quarter of an hour later, lights and sirens lit up the darkness and Thea saw the figure of the headmaster striding across the fields. Even in a dressing gown and wellington boots he cast an imposing presence.

  Before Dr Fox could ask, Gareth stepped in and briefly explained the situation, omitting to mention why they had been on school grounds at that late hour.

  ‘Right. I’ll get dressed and then go to the hospital. No need for you both to come; you should go back to your houses.’

  He didn’t ask any more questions, but Thea knew that eventually they would have to explain their presence on the school grounds at nearly midnight.

  The paramedics eased Mr Battle onto a stretcher and fitted an oxygen mask before loading him carefully into the ambulance. ‘We’ll have you up to St Anne’s in a jiffy,’ she heard one of them say.

  Thea stood watching as they drove away, unsure what to do next. If Mr Battle didn’t recover … If he did recover and tell the headmaster what she’d been up to …

  ‘Come on,’ Gareth said, interrupting her catastrophising. ‘I know exactly what we need.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  July 1769, London

  ‘I must go,’ Mary announced as she stormed into the house. Two months had passed since she had sent the bolt of silk to Hollander’s and there had been no response. ‘I cannot believe I was so foolish as to trust him,’ she fumed. ‘I will not allow him to get away with this.’

  ‘What?’ Frances asked from where she sat at the table, a half-darned stocking forgotten in her fingers. ‘Where must you go?’

  ‘To Oxleigh, of course. For I cannot stay here a moment longer. I need to be certain for myself that Mr Hollander received the silk and to find out exactly why I have heard nothing in return.’

  ‘Will any good come of it, sister?’ Frances said gently. ‘I have had my doubts about him since our first meeting, for he struck me as altogether too slippery a character.’

  ‘And you did not think to warn me more ste
rnly of this at the time?’

  Frances shrugged. ‘You were – we were – desperate.’

  Mary shook her head violently, drops of rain flying from her cloak and wetting the floor. ‘I cannot afford to let this lie, for the sake of my pride as much as the hope of being able to recover our mother’s necklace. I shall not be taken for a fool. Unlike Mr Le Maître, I cannot wait months in the hopes of payment. I am booked on tomorrow morning’s stage and will be there by Wednesday. I must make haste and prepare my trunk, for there is no time to waste.’

  Mary packed the cloth featuring the columbine and traveller’s joy alongside her drawings, wrapping them carefully in several layers of plain linen. She added several ordinary gowns suitable for travelling, a couple of chemises, stockings and so on. On the top she placed a set of sheets, for the inn where the coach would stop overnight could not be guaranteed to be free of bugs among the bedding and Frances had advised taking her own.

  That night, Mary found herself restlessly pacing the floor, her cheeks burning and her thoughts churning, for now she had resolved to act she could not settle to anything. She rehearsed the words she would say to Mr Hollander. Would she be angry, self-righteous even, as a man would, or should she be calmer, reason with him more gently? She knew the latter would likely be a more successful course of action, though she longed to rage at him for flaunting their agreement. She would not be cast aside, disregarded, ignored any longer. The fact of her being a woman did not give him the right to renege on his agreement and evade his debts.

  The rain ceased its drumming against the windowpanes and as darkness fell it sputtered to a slow drizzle, lifting Mary’s hopes that it would continue to ease and that the coach would not be held up, for the journey would be long enough without the prospect of further delay.

  She had little knowledge of the country to the south-west of London, but Frances assured her it was pleasant and generally flat going. ‘I wish I could travel with you, but I am committed to the hospital,’ she fretted.

  ‘We can scarce afford the fare for one of us,’ Mary replied. ‘Besides, I am perfectly capable of confronting him on my own.’ She stoked the anger burning within her until it was a flame that would not easily be doused.

  As Mary prepared to leave the following morning, Frances pressed a small package into her hands. ‘Some food, for the journey. God speed and may He protect and guide you.’

  Mary fought the flare of doubt that rose in her chest. There was a chance, however slight, that something untoward had happened to Mr Hollander, he could have been taken ill … there could be an easy explanation for the lack of communication. Perhaps even at this very moment he was on his way to London once more. Oh, how terrible it would be if she missed him in this way.

  No, she reminded herself, that was the least likely thing, and she could not sit around and wait for her fate to be decided. Her patience was exhausted. She could not bear to remain ignorant another moment.

  Mary had taken but one other long journey in her life, the one from her childhood home in York to her sister’s in Spitalfields the year before, and she remembered a similar sense of dislocation after so many hours of travel when she finally arrived in Oxleigh. The coaching inn in front of her was a grand building of honeyed stone, and she was struck by how far away she was from all that was familiar. Before she had time to dwell on it, however, she had been deposited near the doorway together with her trunk and her valise, and her travelling companions were but a cloud of dust in the distance, headed for the Bath Road.

  The light was fading, for it was now late in the afternoon. She knew her hair to be awry, her travelling clothes rumpled and she had no desire to be at a disadvantage when confronting the man who had caused her such anguish. She resolved to seek him out the following morning, early, before he had time to be abroad.

  When she reached her room, she paid little heed to its pleasant aspect over rolling hills and instead she lay upon the bed, relieved to no longer be in perpetual motion, for her bones felt as though they had been rattled loose from their joints.

  Later, after a meal of cold meat and bread had been brought up, she opened her trunk and took out the bolt of cloth, handling it carefully so as not to sully it. She spread it out on the bed and marvelled again at its luminous beauty. The mere sight of it gave her courage.

  The church bell sounded and she judged that there was less than a half-hour left of twilight. Convincing herself that the town was sufficiently safe for her to make a quick investigation of its high street, in search of the merchant’s house, she hastily wrapped up the cloth and set it aside before venturing from the inn.

  Mary gathered her cloak about her and hurried along, past several more inns, a shoemaker, a chandler and a saddlery, a milliner, a grocer, two butchers and a liquor merchant, the trade they conducted picked out in bold letters on the doors or on signs above the windows. It was a prosperous town, but that did not surprise her, for she knew it to be a popular stopping place on the way to Bath, where society gentlemen and women took the waters and mingled in the new assembly rooms. She had nearly reached the end and was beginning to be concerned that she had missed the shop she sought, when there it was, right in front of her, a bright illustration of bolts of silk and a pair of shears. Her heart began to beat faster at the thought that she might soon encounter Patrick Hollander, to beard the lion in his den.

  Pretending to peruse the merchandise, she peered into the window, rearing back when she caught a glimpse of a man in the gloomy room. He was not the one she sought, however. This man was thinner, with a stooped back and shoulders folded inwards over a sunken chest like the wings of a bat. He looked up, as if conscious of her scrutiny, and she walked on, pretending urgent business further along the street.

  When her racing heart had slowed somewhat, she crossed the road, gathering her skirts to avoid the mud, and walked back along the other side, sneaking another glance at the shop from a distance.

  Now she had seen the place, the fury that burned in her grew even greater. Patrick Hollander had ignored her; he had made promises that he did not keep and she would not stand for it. The morning could not come soon enough.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Now

  They entered the pub by a side door. Thea was surprised to see the place more than half-full despite it being officially after closing time. A few people stopped talking at their arrival but soon went back to their beer and conversation when they recognised Gareth. A couple raised their drinks to him.

  It was a relief to be out of the rain, and Thea hung her coat on a hook by the door, watching as rivulets of water streamed onto the carpet. Gareth returned from the bar with two quarter-full tumblers and a small beer towel. He handed her the towel and she took off her steamed-up glasses and gratefully wiped the dampness from her face and hair.

  They found a booth tucked away in a corner, next to a fire that kicked out a welcome heat, and sat opposite each other on old wooden settles.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’ she asked. ‘I feel terrible. If he hadn’t been chasing me … Christ, I could have killed him.’ She’d really gone and done it now; felt sure the headmaster would dismiss her before the week was out.

  ‘Thea,’ Gareth said sternly. ‘This isn’t the first time it’s happened.’

  ‘The first time what’s happened?’

  ‘The first time Battle’s had a bit of a turn.’

  ‘That wasn’t a “bit of a turn”,’ she said, astonished. ‘It looked more like a heart attack.’

  ‘He’s an old man,’ Gareth said, so softly that she had to lean closer to hear him over the noise of the other drinkers. ‘Truth is, the job’s been too much for him for years now, but Foxy’s kept him on out of loyalty. Battle’s been at the school ever since anyone can remember. Should have been claiming his pension decades ago.’

  ‘Does he have a family? A wife?’

  Gareth shook his head. ‘The school is his family, I reckon.’ He clinked his glass to hers. ‘Care to tell
me about what was going on back there?’ he asked, taking a sip of his drink. ‘Though of course, if you’d rather not …’

  Thea shook her head. ‘My dad.’ Her voice was thick, clotted with unshed tears.

  ‘Of course. The late Henry Rust.’

  ‘You know about him?’

  ‘Everyone does. Head boy. Legendary school sportsman. Went on to play cricket for Australia, didn’t he?’

  ‘New South Wales, actually.’

  ‘I know it was only recent. That’s got to be tough on you.’ He sat back, considering her for a moment, and she saw kindness soften his eyes. ‘You’re not the only one who had a sports-mad father.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘My dad was a rugby tragic – I’m named after Gareth Edwards, Wales’s greatest scrum-half, greatest player ever; well, according to Dad, anyway. It was a source of eternal disappointment to him that I chose hockey over rugby.’ He grimaced. ‘Didn’t much like getting hurt.’

  Thea smiled. She knew all about fathers and their impossibly high standards.

  ‘So, you’re a chip off the old block, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure about that.’

  ‘You’re too modest. I underestimated your skills and experience. I looked you up – very impressive. I feel bad about giving you a hard time. I’m sorry, Thea.’ He gently placed a hand over hers and Thea found its dry warmth unaccountably comforting.

  ‘I need to apologise too,’ she said with a rueful expression. ‘I jumped to conclusions, said some things I probably shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Truce?’ Gareth’s expression was earnest.

  ‘Truce.’ She held up her glass, chinking it against his before taking a swig. The whisky blazed a fiery trail down her throat, warming her from the inside. Her shivering stopped.

  ‘What drives you?’ he asked, leaning towards her, a look of genuine interest on his face.