‘And the prettiest woman in town,’ said Nicholas. ‘But that would count for nothing, of course.’
‘Until Mrs Blakewood arrived, that is,’ joked Hopewell.
She joined in the newfound reverie. ‘Oh come, I hardly think—’
A sharp rap at the door cut her off. Nicholas fairly jumped to his feet.
‘I’ll see who it is.’
As he opened the door a chill wind flew in, but there was no one there. He stepped outside, looking around.
‘Who’s there?’ he called. Still no response, she heard his footsteps walk out a little further. ‘Ah – no use hiding.’ And then: ‘Hey, come back!’
She scuttled to the door, holding onto the jamb as she poked her head into the cool evening air. She leant forward, trying to see, but the clouds were obscuring the moonlight, and her eyes struggled to adjust.
‘Nicholas?’ Hopewell pushed past. ‘What is it?’ He ran forward, his silhouette soon merging into the darkness. ‘Back in the house, Mrs Blakewood,’ came his voice. ‘I’m not certain what’s—God’s truth!’
As Hopewell sped away, Mercia’s vision finally caught up with the night. She could see neither of the men, but directly outside the door sprawled a strange, uneven mass that had not been there before. She crouched down to touch it, frowning as she ran her hand over the ridges in the soft material. Curious, she picked it up; the object was grey, mostly, but dirty in parts, a garment of some kind, patterned with a series of small diamonds and dots, just like the bodice Clemency …
Of a sudden she knew what she was holding. She gasped for air, unable to breathe.
Chapter Fifteen
She leapt back, throwing down the appalling garment, reaching behind to feel the supportive firmness of the wooden door. She swallowed, feeling sick, the sound of chirping crickets thrumming all around her. But a shout from the street forced her to look up, and she turned to see Hopewell hurrying back.
‘There was someone in the road,’ he said. ‘Nicholas is chasing – what is it? Your face is pale.’
Unable to look, she pointed at the ground. He crouched, the cloth of his breeches creasing loud in the otherwise near-silence; even the crickets seemed to have vanished, but perhaps she just did not hear.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What is this?’
‘A message,’ she managed. ‘A message for me.’
He turned the garment over in his hands, holding it against the candlelight falling through the sitting-room window. ‘A bodice?’
Composing herself, she stood up; now more brightly illuminated, she could tell it was dirty, covered with dark streaks, but the pattern was unmistakable.
‘’Tis Clemency’s bodice,’ she said. ‘The one she was wearing when … I found her.’
‘Clemency’s? How do you know?’
‘She was wearing it the day before. It is … carved in my memory.’
His fist tightened around the stained material. ‘Who would do this?’
The sound of footsteps thudded low in the street. She looked into the blackness as Nicholas appeared from the gloom.
‘Gone,’ he said. ‘He threw a rock at me and ran. He could have hidden anywhere.’
‘I saw you running,’ said Hopewell. ‘I came to help, but—’
‘Too late now.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘No. He was wearing a hood of some sort.’
‘And you are sure it was a man?’ said Mercia.
‘I think so.’
‘But you are not certain.’
‘Well, I don’t think he – whoever it was – was wearing a dress.’
She teased the bodice from Hopewell’s grasp and led them inside. Calmer now, she pushed the trencher and bowl aside to lay it on the sitting-room table, feeling the coldness of the cloth, the ridges in the lace. But handling the garment brought back an intense memory, and she had to take a moment’s pause. She closed her eyes, striving to remember Clemency as the woman in the illicit tavern, or the woman in the clearing that overlooked the town. Anything but the woman in the rope.
Hopewell cleared his throat. ‘Do you want me to take this away?’
She breathed steadily, in and out. ‘I think that would be best. I do not know why this has been left precisely, but I can guess. Someone wants to scare me, or play a sick jest.’
He folded the bodice and pushed it away. ‘Try not to let it worry you.’
‘If I find who did this,’ said Nicholas, ‘it is not Mercia who will have to worry.’
Hopewell clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I doubt whoever left it will be back tonight. But I think it might be better if you stayed, nonetheless.’ He turned to Mercia. ‘Mrs Blakewood, this is a foul act indeed, but try to get some sleep. I should leave you to rest.’
Mercia rubbed her tired eyes. Now Hopewell had mentioned it, she realised how weary she was. ‘Will you be safe walking home, with … all this?’
He set his broad-brimmed hat across his brow. ‘I am often abroad at night. And I have my knife.’ He patted the side of his breeches, where a sharp dagger hung from his belt. ‘In case of animal attack.’
She looked at the blade. ‘Still, be careful.’
‘Whoever he is, he will be abed by now. As we all need to be.’ He turned towards the door, the bodice crunched up in his fist. ‘Now goodnight, and sleep well, both.’
Despite Amery’s offer to Nicholas of his spare room, she had already decided to ask him to sleep in the cottage: until Nathan returned they agreed it would be better she did not stay alone, especially with malicious deliveries after dark. But the night passed peacefully, in the real world at least. In her dreams she walked with Clemency, the dead woman calling to her from the eaves of a golden wood, beseeching her to take her sullied bodice and hide it.
The smell of nutmeg teased her awake. She dressed to find Nicholas hunched over the kitchen fire, stirring a pot of milk. He looked over his shoulder and smiled.
‘It is remarkable here, you know.’ He agitated his spoon. ‘So far from anywhere, and yet still they manage to survive. Different to back home, mind. For all its noise and filth, London’s the town for me.’ He took out the spoon to taste the milk, gingerly touching it with the tip of his tongue. ‘A bit hot,’ he winced.
‘It is a rare life they are building.’ She took a seat. ‘And I would love to be able to share it with them. But not now. All that has changed.’
‘I hope it won’t change this place for ever. Here.’ He poured some of the milk into a mug. ‘It will cool quickly.’
‘Thank you.’ She sipped at the thick liquid; the heat snatched at her tongue, but she bore it. Somehow she liked the pain: it made her feel more alive.
‘After I went to bed, I remembered that letter to Nathan I wanted to write. I was tired, so the script is not the neatest, but you recall how Standfast Edwards said he was riding to Hartford this morning? Do you think ’tis too late to catch him?’
‘Not if he leaves the same time we saw him the other day.’ Nicholas set down the spoon. ‘You want me to ask him to take the letter to Winthrop’s house?’
‘Please. I left it on the shelf in the other room. As long as Standfast delivers it, Nathan will be here tomorrow evening, hopefully with our belongings.’
He nodded, snatching up the letter from the best room and sprinting off without a coat. She followed him out the door, leaning against the front wall of the house with the hot mug of milk in her ungloved hands. It was a fine morning, early, the air fresh and pure, crisp as only dawn air can be. The sound of the town awakening rang out around her; not far off, she could tell Vic was already at his anvil, the regular chiming of his hammer striking away at his work. A pig grunted in the dusty street in front of the house, wandering down the road from who knew where. She breathed in deeply: the scent of America, of newness. Would that Clemency were there to share it.
She looked up from her reverie to see a shawled figure coming down the street from the meeting house. Reaching the
gate to the cottage the figure hesitated, but eventually she made up her mind. She opened the gate, casting back her gaping hood with a rough tug, exposing her auburn hair.
‘Good morrow, Miss Davison,’ said Mercia. Seeing Remembrance brought back memories of the callousness with which the young woman had treated Clemency at the ministerial gathering. But she had just lost her brother: Mercia was mindful of that. ‘How do you fare this day?’
‘Good morrow, Mrs Blakewood. I … was not sure you would be awake so early.’
‘I do not sleep well, of late.’
‘No.’ Remembrance kept her eyes averted. ‘I—’
She looked at her pallid face over the steaming rim of her mug. Remembrance’s aspect was so forlorn she could not help feeling pity.
‘What is the matter?’ she said.
‘I wanted to see how you were faring. It cannot be easy, returning here.’
‘It is not. But I had to come back.’
‘I know.’ A steady pause. ‘I regret what I said – before. To Clemency. I did not mean … I did not want to bring the Lord’s wrath on her. I was angry.’
‘And your father?’ She stooped to set the mug on the ground. ‘Is he still angry?’
‘Father says little. I … just wanted to come.’ She looked up, her eyes darting this way and that, never quite settling on Mercia’s face. ‘Is Mr Keyte with you?’
‘Nathan?’ She frowned. ‘Not yet. Why?’
At last Remembrance met her gaze; in her eyes glowed a trace of the same defiance she had shown when assaulting Clemency. ‘I merely wondered. I was hoping to talk with him. He seemed to … understand things.’
Mercia folded her arms. ‘You will have to wait. I do not know when he will be back.’
‘But it will be soon?’
‘I hope so.’
Remembrance pulled up her hood. ‘Truly, I am sorry about Clemency. I am sure you must blame me, but … I hope now I can make amends.’
‘When her killer is discovered, then we can talk of amends.’
The young woman stared. ‘Then it is true you think she was—’ She cut herself off. ‘I should get back to father. He will be wondering where I am.’ She shuffled towards the street. ‘Farewell.’
That afternoon she visited Clemency’s grave, laying a yellow bunch of wild flowers on the light brown plot. There was no headstone yet, the death too recent and sudden. But she knelt at its side, her hands clasped in prayer, asking God’s kindness, and begging to receive guidance on the answers she sought.
‘Clemency,’ she said, once she had finished her prayers. ‘I am sorry. I wish I could have been there, to stop this from happening. I wish … I had insisted you stayed with us that night.’
And then she felt Clemency rise from her heart, smiling as she had the day before her death, and at least, Mercia knew, she had been happy then. But she did not speak today, content just to sit, as Mercia wept her tears until the sadness fell away, a hollow ache carving into her soul. Then Clemency returned to her heart, and another presence arrived, this one real and human.
‘Mercia,’ said Nicholas, crouching beside her. ‘You have been here for hours. Do you want to come back now?’
She looked up and gave him a sad smile. ‘Hours?’
He nodded. ‘At least two.’
She took a deep breath, pulling herself to her feet, holding onto his shoulder as her legs strained to regain their feeling.
‘I needed to be here.’ She looked at the ground, at the shallow indentation where she had been sitting in the grass. ‘If I could not be at the funeral, then I had to be with her today.’
‘I know.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘Do you want to eat?’
‘I ate earlier.’ She looked up; the sun was setting, but she had not noticed the change in light. ‘I am not hungry now.’
‘That was breakfast.’ He tilted his head. ‘I think you should have food.’
‘Perhaps.’ She breathed in the light dampness of the pines and the birches in the forest around her, the ashes and the elms. And she thought again of Clemency, about the pleasure she had taken in the beauty of this land.
‘Can we go to the waterfall a moment? I would just like … more than this grave, I think that is where I should be, to say goodbye. It was her favourite place.’
He smiled. ‘Lead the way.’
She took him through the meadow, skirting the palisade, aiming for the forest at the settlement’s western edge. Not far from Kit’s sawmill, she found the rising path, and although the greyness of evening was nearly upon them, she climbed without pause, stepping over roots and rocks as she took in the crescendo of the waterfall’s descent, finally emerging into the clearing near its top. But then she halted, for she and Nicholas were not alone.
On the edge of the clearing, sitting on the same rock where she had comforted Clemency the day of Praise-God Davison’s death, Percy Lavington was talking with Silence Edwards, a small fire burning at their feet. The weak flames cast a subdued orange glow on the rocks, the slight crackling no match for the steady flow of water cascading over the lip of the falls behind them. As she came into the circular space, the two raised their heads, breaking from their conversation.
‘Mrs Blakewood,’ acknowledged Percy. ‘Welcome. What are you doing here?’
She tried to hide her disappointment. ‘Clemency said it was her favourite place, and well – I merely wanted to come.’ She turned back towards the path. ‘But I can do so another time.’
‘No.’ Silence hastily jumped from his perch; more thickset than his brother, he was still dextrous. ‘I think we have finished now.’
‘But the fire?’
‘Not long lit,’ said Percy. ‘We did not mean to stay much longer in any case.’ He turned to his companion. ‘You are certain about …?’
Silence nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Well, then. A fine night, Mrs Blakewood.’
‘Calm, at least. And please, you can call me Mercia.’
He touched the brim of his hat. ‘You know Sil, of course. Would you … like to share the warmth?’
Not much in the mood for conversation, she shook her head. ‘Do not worry, Percy. I am happy to come back.’
He leapt to his feet. ‘If you wish a moment’s reflection, then do please stay. We can show Nicholas further down the falls, along this path here, if he has an interest.’
Nicholas stepped forward. ‘I think you would like that, Mercia. We won’t be long.’
‘Ten minutes,’ said Sil, reaching down for his own, brown, hat; like the green jacket he was wearing, his attire was less formal than most she had seen in the town, a thin sort of bracelet circling his wrist. ‘Then it will be getting dark.’
She made to protest, but Percy beckoned to Nicholas, leading him and Silence down a hidden path that ran the course of the waterfall’s long cascades. The three men gone, she walked alone to the smooth platform before her and sat, feeling the caress of the fire. She fell to thinking of Clemency, the time passing again unnoticed as she enjoyed the same evening views her friend must have known; and she realised, then, that not even here, in this beautiful glade, could she truly say goodbye.
The darkness deepening, she was lost in her contemplations when a call startled her from her thoughts.
‘Do you feel better now?’ asked Percy, returned from their exploration.
She looked up and smiled. ‘I do.’
‘Shall I take you back?’ said Nicholas. ‘The light is going.’
She rose to her feet. ‘And you, Percy? Sil? You will come with us?’
‘You go on,’ said Sil. ‘We will put out this fire and follow soon after.’
‘We can wait.’
Percy shook his head. ‘The path back to town can be awkward in the dark. Best for you to go. We can finish up here.’
‘Very well.’ She looked between the two in gratitude. ‘Thank you, both, for your understanding.’
As Sil crouched by the fire, Percy accompanied them to the head of
the path. Glancing back, he gave Mercia a wry smile.
‘I know my father does not much care for your being here, but that does not mean you and I cannot discuss … what has happened.’ He looked at the sky; stars had begun to appear, their pinpricks of white glinting on the horizon. ‘But perhaps not tonight.’
His words enthused her. ‘That would be welcome.’
‘Although … I do wonder one thing. Forgive me, but – why are you still here, in Meltwater? Coming back after my father made you leave … it was brave. But you do not need to suffer with us. You could return to England whenever you wished.’
She looked down the path into the fast encroaching gloom. ‘I could. But I would leave part of me behind if I abandoned Clemency now. She was a friend, when so many others in my life have not been.’
He nodded slowly. ‘I doubted her when she trusted you. I am sorry for it. She did not know you long, but she spoke of you with great affection.’ He looked her up and down, a little longer perhaps than proper. But then he bowed, bade her good night, and she turned away from the falls.
She followed Nicholas down the forest trail, taking note as he pointed out obstacles in the path. She managed not to trip, for the most part, only once sucking in through her teeth as she went over on her ankle, but she righted herself in time. Soon they came out into the meadow between the forest and the town, the blackness of night now upon them.
Out in the open, she relaxed her concentration. ‘I want to thank you, too, Nicholas. For giving me that time alone.’
‘You needed it. Watch this stone here.’
She stepped over the lonely rock. ‘Did they say anything?’
‘Percy and Sil?’ He laughed. ‘Very little. They took me halfway down the falls and up again. Talked a little of the town, I suppose.’
‘Nothing about Clemency?’
‘No. And …’
She frowned. ‘What?’
‘I just think … for all Percy’s talk, I’m not sure I’d trust him yet. I mean, what was he doing out here with that Silence?’
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