The Naturalist's Daughter

by Téa Cooper

  Down the road and take the path just before the bridge. Mrs Adcock’s words hummed through her mind as she strode along the road. Not as far as the driveway to Mrs Quinleaven’s house. A path branched off to the right then followed a small track along the edge of the brook.

  Gayadin was waiting for her, her clawed fingers pulling a tattered shawl tight around her shoulders. ‘Down here. Not so bad. Can’t keep it all tidy no more.’

  The damp grass clung to her skirt, soaking her stockings as she followed Gayadin down through what might have been an old gate.

  ‘Is this where you live?’

  Gayadin stopped and pointed ahead to a vacant patch of grass, unkempt, full of tiny purple and pink orchids, kangaroo grass and the purple vine of the native lilac crowding the ground, the wattle’s almond scent filling the air.

  ‘The old church here. Not up there.’ She frowned and waved her hand in the direction of the town. ‘Meant to be here. Not moved up there.’ She pursed her lips and let out a sigh of frustration.

  Something caught in her throat and the same prickle of fingers walked her spine as they had when she’d first seen the sketchbook.

  ‘We leave ’em here. They like it here. Where the mallangong play. Close by their house.’ She pointed over the brook and Tamsin craned her head. Through the yellow puffs on the wattles she could make out the three chimneys standing proud.

  ‘They like that. Mallangong girl where she like to be, with her family.’

  Tamsin pushed through the tall grass until she reached a cleared patch, neatly trimmed, and four small weathered headstones. She knelt down on the damp ground and ran her fingers over the etched words: Charles Winton, Father of my Heart 1764–1840.

  She’d found him!

  Charles Winton. And he’d lived all that time. Not died when the correspondence with Banks ended, all those long years after the dates in his sketchbook. Why had he stopped working? What had brought him to this place so far from Agnes Banks?

  Crawling on her hands and knees, her heart pumping she reached for the next: Jenifer Trevan 1772–1842, Loving granddaughter of Granfer Tomas Trevan. Jenifer Trevan, the epitaph on the piece of cartridge paper in the tin. She hadn’t died in 1788. Far from it.

  ‘Mallangong girl’s mam.’

  Tamsin turned to Gayadin, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  ‘No crying. She happy now. Her girl, she came back. See here?’ Gayadin moved to the next headstone, ‘and this one here, the mallangong girl.’

  Tears blurred her eyes as she turned to the next two headstones. Rose Methenwyck 1800–1865 and Finneas Methenwyck 1794–1860.

  ‘He doctor. He good, very clever man. He look after my people, when the smallpox come.’

  Her heart picked up a beat or two. ‘Gayadin?’ She couldn’t put her finger on it. ‘Tell me—in the picture. That’s Rose and her husband Finneas, and you and Jane.’

  ‘You right. My Jane. We sisters. Not blood sisters.’ She rested her gnarled hand on her scrawny chest. ‘Heart sisters.’

  Now the blood was pumping so fast she could hardly see straight. ‘Who did Jane marry?’

  ‘Why, Mr Kelly. I told you that. My Jane, the floodwaters took her. She got no resting place.’

  Jane Kelly. Jane Methenwyck. Rose and Finneas’s daughter. Tamsin plopped down on the ground. It couldn’t be the case. She was jumping to conclusions. Five years in the strict environment of the Library had taught her not to do that. And there was still Mrs Quinleaven. ‘Gayadin, tell me about Mrs Quinleaven.’

  The old woman shrugged her shoulders, making her shawl slip down her arms. ‘She come after my Jane. Sad, sad lady. Her husband up and gone. Mr Kelly, he don’t want me there. Says I remind him too much of his Jane. That when I come here.’ She gestured to the little cottage tucked on the banks of the river. ‘Mrs Quinleaven his housekeeper, many, many years, and his friend. They talk and talk, read them books in that study.’

  ‘But they didn’t marry?’

  ‘No. Friends, not lovers. Mr Kelly, he just love my Jane. We all love my Jane. You don’t listen to that gossiping. Just friends.’

  And who would believe that in a small town? No one. A widow and his housekeeper under one roof. She could just see Mrs Rushworth having to live down her mother’s indiscretion. Which brought her straight back to the sketchbook. Perhaps Mrs Quinleaven had made a promise to Mr Kelly to see the sketchbook where it belonged. Perhaps he recognised the importance of it, maybe he’d made a promise to Jane. Damn Shaw Everdene and Mrs Rushworth. And why, oh why, hadn’t Mr Kelly put anything in writing—something that would stand up in court, some legal document.

  ‘You got that picture?’

  The man was a solicitor for goodness sake. Why was there nothing in his will? ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You got that picture of my Jane?’

  Tamsin burrowed in her pocket and pulled out the daguerreotype, unwrapped it and handed it to Gayadin.

  ‘You got her look.’ Gayadin didn’t look at the picture, just held it out in front of her like a mirror.

  ‘Whose look?’

  ‘Mallangong girl. Rose.’

  Tamsin pulled her spectacles from her pocket and rammed them onto her nose and then snatched the daguerreotype from her fingers. The woman had light hair, messy, curly, as though it wouldn’t do what it was told, but fair. Hers was black as black.

  ‘She’s got your nose. Pointy. Way you hold it up like you smelling the air.’

  ‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’ She lifted her head, realised what she was doing and dropped it again to look at the picture.

  ‘And your eyes.’

  Maybe. Maybe not. There was no way to tell from the daguerreotype. She had heavy, very heavy eyebrows. She knew all about those. Spent hours turning them into something that resembled the high curved arches all the girls favoured now, in a vain attempt to look modern. But the lines fanning out around the woman’s eyes looked as though she spent a lot of time smiling, laughing even. Maybe her hair was grey, not fair. ‘Were they happy?’

  ‘We all happy, even after Mam and Pa gone, very happy till the flood come.’

  A great wave of exhaustion turned Tamsin’s bones to jelly and she sank down into the grass, her back resting against Rose’s headstone. The stone was rough but not cold, almost warm. The sun had risen and the mist had cleared. Tears burned her throat.

  ‘Tell me your story, Gayadin. Right from the beginning, please.’

  The old woman lowered herself to the ground with a groan, picked a series of long strands of grass and laid them in her lap, her fingers moving unexpectedly fast as she plaited the strands together as though trying to remember, trying to get her thoughts in order.

  ‘I told you. That sneaky water rat, he mated with beautiful duck and the mallangong girl she born.’

  She didn’t want some legend, she wanted fact. Who else was there to tell her? Patience. She had to be patient. ‘And Rose was the mallangong girl.’

  Gayadin grunted. ‘Yukri, she there, she help. The water rat, he took Rose’s brother, Julian, across the water. Then the mallangong girl came. Everyone love her, just like my Jane. Jenifer sad, always sad for her boy, but Rose, she had her pa.’

  ‘Who was the mallangong girl’s father?’

  ‘Why the water rat. You not listening?’

  ‘But she’s Rose, Rose Winton.’

  ‘Father of my heart. See it says it there.’ She stabbed at Charles Winton’s headstone. ‘She daughter of his heart, not his blood. Same like Jane and me. Heart sisters, not blood sisters. You going to listen more now?’

  Tamsin nodded. She still didn’t understand it all, needed time to put it together. What she wouldn’t give for a piece of paper. She’d start with Jenifer Trevan.

  ‘My Bunji and Yindi—they showed Mr Charles the mallangong Yellow-Mundee speared. He sent it across the water to the king, and made pictures, lots of pictures for the king. They showed him where the mallangong live, where she make her house, where she keep her bab
ies. Then the old man mallangong came. He angry. He get Charles real bad. He sick, so sick.’

  ‘He was spurred?’

  ‘Yep. Then mallangong girl, she takes his book to the king but he don’t want it. She comes back, she brings the doctor.’ Gayadin turned and lifted her head towards Finneas’s headstone. ‘He good man—he saved me from the white man’s disease.’ She fingered the smallpox pits covering her face. ‘We came, all of us to his new place. Here.’ Her hand swept in an arch. ‘Too long now. My man, he and the doctor work hard. He whitefella. Lovely whitefella. He dead too, and my babies. Only me now.’

  Tamsin took the plaited grass strand Gayadin held out.

  ‘All tied up now. You know. Now you take care of them. They your family.’

  How she’d like that to be.

  ‘You take off that boot. I show you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take off that boot.’

  ‘No!’ She wasn’t taking her boot off, not for Gayadin, not for anyone. She hated her feet, never looked at them unless she had to, always wore boots, never shoes.

  ‘You take it off. Show me.’

  Heat filled her face. How did the old woman know? She unlaced her right boot and slipped out her foot, then slowly, very slowly slid down her soggy stocking.

  Gayadin’s cold hand clasped her foot and pulled the stocking free. ‘See here, the web here.’ She parted Tamsin’s second toe and her third and ran her finger over the stretched webbed skin that she hated so much. ‘The beautiful duck’s foot. My Jane she had it and her mam, Rose. That’s why we called her mallangong girl.’

  Twenty-four

  Cornwall, England 1820

  A great gulp of icy air shocked Rose to wakefulness, her jaw still locked tight and her head cocked to one side, ears pricked for footsteps, for chanting. She inhaled, searching for the scent of decay, cold stale air and the coppery tang of blood. She snapped her eyes open leaving the nightmare behind her, wiping away the tendrils of fear that seized her in their relentless grasp.

  Where was Finneas? He had promised he’d stay. She pushed back the cloak covering her. The metal hinges keened as the door swung open and he was there; in two strides he covered the space between them and clasped her in his arms.

  ‘You promised me you wouldn’t leave.’

  ‘You haven’t been alone and I’m here now.’ He took off his cloak and tucked it over her lap. ‘I’ve brought someone to speak to you.’

  Her heart stopped when a figure stepped into the room and threw back her hood.

  Lady Methenwyck!

  She blinked her eyes clear, hand pressed to her breast willing her heart to pump.

  ‘Sit down.’ Finneas indicated to the chair opposite her and bent to throw some more logs on the fire while an old woman shuffled in with a tray of cups and a pot of tea.

  ‘Thank you Mrs Penhaligon.’

  She put the tray down on the table, almost tripping over her skirts in an attempt to curtsey to Caroline. ‘And thank you for caring for Rose.’

  Caring for her? He had left her, left her in the care of this old woman. How long had he been gone? ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s morning. Mrs Penhaligon stayed with you while you slept.’ He threw back the heavy curtains allowing the frail morning light to flutter into the room.

  She’d slept all night. It must have been the brandy. And what was Lady Methenwyck doing here? ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You will. Sit tight.’ Finneas sat down on the arm of her chair and took her hand in his, warm and soothing. ‘Caroline, it’s time.’

  Lady Methenwyck uttered a pitiful moan. ‘I would tell this to Jenifer but I cannot so you must take my words to her, and my apologies. I thought I was acting for the best.’

  Whatever was she talking about? She opened her mouth and Finneas squeezed her hand, silencing her.

  ‘Your mother, Jenifer, was a scullery maid at Wyck Hall, and a very good one. Everyone loved her, especially as she had inherited her grandfather’s proficiency and she took care of the herb garden. She had a skill with healing, with tinctures and poultices.’

  Rose felt her heart settle, some kind of validation. This was Mam as she knew her. Not some surrogate, as the scratchings in the barrow had led her to fear. Jenifer was Mam.

  ‘I had tried for many years to provide Lord Methenwyck with an heir but I couldn’t hold the child. Each time I became sicker; but for Jenifer’s herbs I would have died more times than I care to remember. I think perhaps I did a little with every child I lost. She came to my aid time and time again.

  ‘On the night before Candlemas, with thirteen guests, their horses and servants to attend to, poor Mrs Pascoe and the staff were run off their feet. It was late, very late when Jenifer left to go home. As she crossed the moor a storm came up. She took shelter in the barrow.’

  A cold tremor whisked its way across Rose’s flesh. Her feet had known the path, not because she’d walked it before but because Mam had. Some kind of knowledge passed down to her.

  ‘She witnessed something …’

  Goosebumps flecked Rose’s skin. She didn’t need to hear what came next; she knew, with a deep abiding certainty, that it wasn’t only the path she’d shared with Mam. She pushed Finneas’s hand away and sat up a little straighter in the chair, her heart galloping just as it had when she’d followed the flickering light into the barrow.

  ‘Thirty years ago Lord Methenwyck was still an active man with certain appetites.’ A sting of colour rose to Caroline’s cheeks and she twisted her handkerchief. ‘I could not fulfil his needs.’ She cleared her throat. ‘A primitive carnal need I could never satisfy. When Jenifer stumbled into the barrow, he marked her for his pleasure.’

  The bitter taste of bile filled Rose’s mouth and a picture of Mam spread-eagled as the girl on the stone filled her vision, hair cascading like a waterfall, skin lilac in the guttering candlelight.

  ‘He locked her in the small room off the central chamber and left her. She didn’t expect to survive.’

  Rose clutched at Finneas’s jacket sleeve searching for some comfort in the rough wool. Mam expected to die. February 2nd, 1788.

  ‘Continue, Caroline.’ Finneas sounded so harsh, his back ramrod straight, his fists bunched.

  Lady Methenwyck lifted her face, dabbed her eyes with her crumpled handkerchief and uttered a mournful sigh. ‘When Jenifer didn’t turn up for work the next day Mrs Pascoe and I feared the worst. We found her, against all odds, alive. I told her to flee, offered her money. She wouldn’t leave her granfer. He was too sick to move. I insisted she should stay away from Wyck Hall. Not to come back. I had to keep her from Lord Methenwyck. He would have taken her as he took the others.’ A strangled sob slipped between Lady Methenwyck’s lips and she sank back in the chair.

  Finneas leapt to his feet. ‘Took the others?’

  With a nod of her head Lady Methenwyck acknowledged the awful truth. ‘Yes, like the others. A girl disappeared every sabbat, sacrificed to his strange whims.’

  ‘Why did no one stop him? Why didn’t you?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He is my husband.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Rose spat the words. She didn’t want to know why. Not now, not yet. She wanted to know what had happened to Mam. Test the misbeliefs that had shaped her life, hear the story Mam had never spoken.

  ‘I had to save Jenifer—no matter what she wanted, I had to get her away. She’d saved my life and I owed her her own. I’d turned a blind eye in the past. I couldn’t make that mistake again.’

  Finneas sank back onto the arm of her chair. ‘Was my mother one of those girls?’ He didn’t give her the opportunity to respond. ‘That’s why you took me in, from the Poor House, in a vain attempt to atone for your husband’s sins.’

  Rose clutched at Finneas’s hand, his fingers tightened.

  ‘I put the Methenwyck rose,’ she lifted her hand and the square-cut emerald caught the light, ‘into a handkerchief in a parcel of food Mrs Pasc
oe regularly gave Jenifer for her granfer. Once she had left I sent to the constabulary saying she had stolen the ring. They arrested her and took her to Bodmin. I mistakenly believed she would be sentenced to transportation, far better than to be sacrificed to Lord Methenwyck’s perversions. He does not like to be thwarted. He gave evidence and she was sentenced to hang.’

  ‘Thwarted be damned! The Methenwyck rose is priceless. You must have known she’d hang.’

  This woman had sentenced Mam to death, as surely as if she’d put the noose around her neck. Her nails bit into the palms of her hands. She wanted nothing more than to beat her within an inch of her life. How dare she play judge, jury and executioner? ‘Did she hang?’ She had to know, had to know if this Jenifer was her mam or yet another deception that would upend her reality.

  ‘No.’

  The air whistled out between Rose’s lips as she waited for Lady Methenwyck to continue.

  ‘Her sentence was transmuted along with hundreds of others when King George recovered from a bout of madness. However, she was transported for the term of her natural life, not for the seven years I imagined.’ The woman at least had the grace to lower her gaze. ‘It was the only way I could get her away from Methenwyck. Don’t you understand? It was Candlemas.’

  ‘The hunting parties.’ Finneas leapt to his feet. ‘The rumours were true, only not the hogwash about ghosts and the ancients returning to claim their sacrifices. It was Methenwyck. And you protected him.’

  ‘What else could I do? The shame, the shame on the family. It wasn’t only Methenwyck. His friends, and the people that came were powerful men of government, of business. Men who were in a position to manipulate the courts, behave as they wished, indulge their passions. Jenifer would have died.’