by Jane Johnson
‘In fact, it’s a funny thing, but the book’ – he gestured towards it – ‘came from a house clearance down here. It must have been down here in Cornwall ever since when was it, 1634?’
‘1625.’ He obviously didn’t know I knew it had come from the very house we were sitting in. I could have let it go, but somehow I didn’t want to. ‘Alison said she and Andrew sent it up to you along with a load of other old books. To sell for them.’
He reddened. ‘Ah. Well, I thought you’d appreciate it, it being an embroidery book and all. Kept it for you for a while, actually, then forgot all about it until… well, you know. So, really, I gave it to you in error: in all honesty, you ought to let me have it back again when you’ve finished it, so I can sell it for Alison. Funerals cost a bit nowadays, and I gather Andrew was rather on his uppers.’
What a snake he was. As soon as he got his hands on it I knew he’d sell it, all right, but I bet the full price fetched would never make it into Alison’s pocket. ‘When I’ve finished reading it, then, perhaps,’ I lied, and watched his face soften with relief.
‘Come here, old thing,’ he said at last, holding his arms wide.
Like a mindless automaton I found myself walking towards him, and then my head was resting on his shoulder, and I could smell the ironed-linen smell of his shirt and a trace of his usual cologne, heated by his body, beneath. He cupped my head against him, and I felt the beat of his pulse quicken. The book dug uncomfortably into my breast as he held me closer, and, suddenly aware of my weak stupidity, I pulled away, cheeks flaming.
‘Go away,’ I said. ‘Don’t do this.’
He rubbed his face and I remembered how many times I had lain propped up on my elbows over him easing away the tension lines on his forehead with the pads of my fingers.
‘It’s not so easy to forget you, Julia, whatever you may think; it’s not been easy for me these past weeks.’
‘Good. Now go away.’
That night, I stayed in my room and immersed myself in Catherine’s book. Midnight passed, the moon rose, and the stars wheeled, but I did not see them. When the owl hooted in the woods at two in the morning, I was still reading, because the notes in the margin had suddenly revealed themselves to be not just a needlewoman’s daily journal but a devastating historical puzzle.
11
Catherine
Sunday, 24th July
I wryte this I noe not where, in darknesse & feare for my life, nay, my very sowle. It ys five daies since they came uppon us, five daies & nights of horror. I have seene sights no woman shuld witnesse, borne indignitie & terrors no Christian shuld be subjected to, & where it all will end, if not in agonie & deth, I can not conceive. All around ys misery & paine, stink & creweltie. May bee we are all ready dead & have passed on to purgatorie. But surely even Hell can not bee worse than this awefull fate that has overtaken us? May the Lord have mercy on me & on my fellows & save us from our inhumayne lot, but I feare He has turned His face from us & heares not oure cryes…
‘Cat… Catherine!’
She turned quickly, to find her cousin Robert standing in the hallway, wearing his Sunday best and a hangdog expression. His blue eyes were beseeching. For the past two weeks, since the Master had spelled out her destiny, Catherine had barely spoken a word to him.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’ve come to take you down to the town. Matty said the two of you were going to the chapel in Penzance to hear the new preacher, so I thought I might come with you. Besides, there’s a sea-fret hanging over the bay – I thought you’d not want to get wet –’
Cat’s chin came up sharply. ‘We can walk, thank you, it’s only two mile or so.’ She glanced down regretfully at her best stockings, the ones with the clocking at the ankles. She had embroidered them herself, and they were very fine: the thought of them getting wet or, worse, muddy, was infuriating. But she would not go with Rob if she could help it.
At that moment Matty appeared. When she saw Robert Bolitho, her face broke into a huge and happy smile. ‘I saw the trap outside; are you come with us down to the town, Rob? It’s fair mizzly out: you can’t even see the Mount through it and I warn’t looking forward to the walk, though Nell and William have already set out, I see.’
Cat sighed; there was no avoiding it now. ‘Nell Chigwine’s going to the chapel of Our Lady? Why isn’t she going down to Gulval as usual with the rest of the household? It was the one reason I could fathom out that might make joining Mother and Uncle Ned today a little more bearable, that at least I wouldn’t have to endure Nell watching me during the sermon, waiting for the preacher to make a reference to Eve’s sin so that she can smirk at me.’
Matty grinned. ‘It’ll be a change, Cat; ’sides, if I have to sit through another of Mr Veale’s long sermons I’ll likely drop off. I din’t get a wink last night with them gulls squawking their heads off on the roof right over me. The Reverend says God created all creatures with a purpose and a plan, but I can’t see what seagulls are good for at all. I rubbed my knuckles raw yesterday cleaning their mess off the courtyard, bleddy things.’
Cat leaned in towards her and said softly, ‘It’s said they cry with the voices of the dead who’ve not yet passed over.’
Matty recoiled. ‘But they’re right over my head!’ she wailed. ‘I hear them walking around!’ Her eyes filled with tears.
Rob shot Cat a furious look, then he put an arm around the distraught housemaid. ‘Let’s get you in the trap, Matty. When we get back I’ll see what I can do about clearing their nests off the roof above your room, shall I?’
Matty gazed up at him adoringly. ‘You’re a good man, Robert Bolitho. Cat don’t know how lucky she is.’
The mist was still thick as they trotted out of the drive on to the road that wound steeply down towards the sea. It swathed the countryside, trapping the heat of the land so that the air was muggy and hard to breathe. Sea-frets like this were not a rare phenomenon during a Cornish summer and would most likely burn off when the sun rose higher, but to Catherine the enclosing mist made the ride down to Penzance claustrophobic. She felt the hedges pressing in on her, the seedheads of the docks showing the rust-red of old blood, the towering foxglove stalks now bereft of all flowers, as if they had been stripped by some malign hand. She stole a glance at Rob, at his broad, blunt profile and the unruly strands of straw-yellow hair escaping from his hat. Could she bear to wake to see that face on the pillow beside her day after day, year after year, with the cows lowing in the byre behind her cottage wall and the gulls screaming on the roof overhead, and these same small horizons framing her world? Something inside her contracted. Until the Master had forced the betrothal upon her, she had regarded her cousin fondly; now she could hardly bear to sit beside him in a carriage and have people look upon them as a couple. The gypsy’s words of hope had been proved false: in a month she and Rob would be man and wife, for the banns were posted and several yards of Spanish brocade had been bought by Lady Harris from the best draper in town (who just happened to be Cat’s uncle, Edward Coode, so no doubt a fine deal had been struck), as bright as the sea that the mist veiled this day. She had not had the heart to make a start on it. To sew your own wedding dress when every time you looked at the fabric made you wish it were your shroud was not likely to imbue your gown with all the luck you would need to carry you through married life. Worst of all, her one possible avenue of escape – in the shape of the Countess of Salisbury’s visit to her mistress – had been closed down. She had been embroidering the altar cloth for the past two weeks; then last Thursday a courier had brought the letter from Lady Cecil explaining that she would be spending the summer at Framlingham and that she hoped now to travel with her husband when he came to inspect the Mount in the autumn to assess the case for new armaments. That night, Cat had folded the altar cloth away beneath the bed. She had not touched it since.
As the trap drew along the seafront road, she gazed across the cloud-filled bay. St Michael’s Mount made its presence fe
lt only as a vague, massy shadow. The tide was in, but nothing stirred on the sea; the boats were moored up for the day of rest, and even the seabirds had tucked their heads under their wings. Cat played with a loose thread on her sleeve. Normally she would have addressed the repair with alacrity, darning in the escaped thread with stitches so neat and fine none but she would have noticed the mend, but, truth be told, she found she had neither the energy nor the will to begin the task. With her fate laid out straight before her and no apparent chance of escape, she felt as shadowy and indistinct as the castle on the isle: an empty, lifeless thing trapped in a restless sea.
The road ran around the harbour, along the quay, past the warehouses and the fish sheds and St Anthony’s Well, and then rose steeply up Quay Street to the chapel of Our Lady on the headland. They passed a stream of worshippers toiling up the hill, all no doubt eager to hear the new preacher speak. He was a Puritan come all the way from Liskeard, Cat had heard, which had made her heart sink further: her uncle was a recent convert and as head of the family was determined that they should all follow his example. Many of those who made their way to the chapel wore simple garb; and not all of them, Cat suspected, because they were poor folk. Indeed, she recognized fat old Alderman Polglaze and his equally large wife, Elizabeth, huffing and puffing along all in plain black relieved only by white lace collars and cuffs. The irony was, she thought, that some decades back they’d have looked just like the Spanish Catholics they so despised, give or take a ruff or two. They passed the Constable, Jim Carew, and old Thomas Ellys and his wife, Alice, the boatbuilder Andrew Pengelly and his son Ephraim, Thomas Samuels and his sister Anne, the Hoskens family from Market-Jew and old Henry Johns, who had the big house up near Lescudjack. It looked as if the preacher would have a very fair turnout. Then someone called out to them, and Cat turned to see Jack Kellynch grinning like a shark on the other side of the street.
‘Hoy there in the coach! You look like a gentleman born, Rob Bolitho, trotting by with your soon-to-be lady wife at your side; but, oh, poor Matty all alone in the back!’ And with that, he ran across the road, caught hold of the side of the trap with both hands, swung himself up over the wheel and vaulted into the back seat alongside the blushing housemaid.
Cat turned to regard him solemnly, though inwardly she seethed at his description. ‘I’m surprised to see you on your way to Preacher Truran, Mister Kellynch. I’d have thought, with your upbringing and sinning ways, the confession box would be more to your taste than listening to some old tub-thumper.’
Jack laughed. ‘Don’t you let my old man hear you talk like that or he’ll put you over his knee and beat some godfearing ways into you, Mistress Catherine. Even my ma can’t talk him out of his passion for the minister. Ah, look, there they are now: wave to them, Matty, like a real queen!’
Near the top of Quay Street came Isacke Kellynch, followed by his little dark wife, Maria, their second son, Jordie, and daughter, Henrietta, whom everyone called Chicken. Matty, red as a beetroot now, raised a feeble hand. For a moment Isacke Kellynch stared at the passing carriage, then his bright blue eyes bulged. ‘Get down out of that fancy wagon,’ he bellowed at his son, ‘and use your two legs as the good God gave you.’ But Jack just threw back his head and laughed.
At the top of the hill Robert drew the horses to a halt, got down and handed Cat out of the trap. He waited, holding her elbow, until Jack and Matty had passed into the crowd. Cat pulled her arm away crossly. ‘Now Matty has gone in without me and everyone will tease her about Jack, and you know she is sweet on him, and he’s just dallying with her, it means nothing to him and she’ll get her heart broken,’ she said, all in a rush.
Rob gave her a queer look. ‘You don’t know much about Jack Kellynch, do you?’
‘I know that he’s a brigand and a buccaneer, a rare nighthawk with a girl in every port.’ And far too flash and handsome for a turnip like Matty, she thought, but did not say.
‘You’re wrong,’ Rob said, shaking his head. ‘You’re always so obdurate in your opinions, Catherine, that sometimes you can’t see what’s right before your eyes.’
‘If it’s not bad enough that I’ve come to hear the boring old preacher sermonize, now I have to listen to you too!’
‘If you don’t want me here, then I will go. But Jack will make Matty his wife before the year is out: mark my words.’ He dug in his pocket and brought out a little package wrapped tightly in a piece of blue silk. ‘Here: I want you to have this. You can open it later, in the presence of your family; or privately if you prefer.’
Her fingers closed on it. Inside the silk the hidden object was small and dense and hard. ‘What is it?’
‘A token of our betrothal. It was my mother’s,’ he said shortly. ‘She would have liked you, even though you do not care for me one whit.’ His jaw was set; it had cost him dear to say what he knew to be the truth, but if Sunday was not the day for speaking what was in his heart, then he knew not when else he might do so. They were so rarely alone, especially now that she avoided his company.
Cat stared at him in dismay. ‘It is not you, Robert; not alone. It is here – Kenegie, Cornwall, this life. It is not what I planned for myself. Not what I dreamed of.’ Her fingertips investigated further, discovering that the heart of the object was absent. A ring. A betrothal ring. She pressed the little parcel back into his hand. ‘Do not give it to me now, Robert. Wait for a better time, when there are not harsh words between us.’
He looked at her so piercingly that she felt sure he could see right into the core of her. At last he nodded. After a pause which indicated a hard internal wrangle, he said, ‘Perhaps I can find work elsewhere in the world. I would not have you give up your dreams, Catherine.’
And then he turned and walked away, leaving her breathless and confused.
‘Catherine!’
She turned to find her uncle bearing down upon her. Edward Coode was a tall man, as bald as a snake, and with about as much warmth. Beside him, his wife, Mary, was the picture of florid health, her vast bosom barely confined by the boning of her corset. Their two small sons ran along the churchyard wall, hitting one another with sticks, until old Annie Badcock the witch turned her evil eye upon them and they went to hide their faces in their mother’s skirts.
‘You will sit in our family pew with us today, Catherine,’ her uncle said severely, thus putting paid to her hopes of sitting with Matty at the back of the church, where she could write her notes in privacy and avoid the gaze of Nell Chigwine. She carried her book, writing stick and a little knife for sharpening its lead in the little bag she wore at her waist. Her journal entries had become too personal to allow for others to happen on them, and, even though she knew neither Polly nor Nell could read, she suspected that if either found the book they would render it up to Lady Harris – the one out of well-meaning intent, thinking it misplaced, the other out of sheer spite. The idea of their mistress, or anyone else for that matter, perusing her words made her stomach lurch in horror.
‘Good day, daughter.’
Jane Tregenna had not succumbed to her Puritan brother’s plain ways. She wore a deep blue robe with silver inlay in its bodice and at the wrists, and a collar of fine lace.
‘For goodness’ sake take off that dreadful coif!’ And before Cat could unstring the cap, her mother had yanked it from her head. ‘Your hair is your crowning glory; do not hide it away. And, oh, that threadbare old gown!’ she declared, under the disapproving eye of her brother. She tucked her arm through Cat’s and marched her towards the church. ‘I am not entirely happy about this matter with Master Bolitho, Catherine; but Ned has overruled me. Lady Harris assures me Robert will have a good living at Kenegie and succeed Parsons as the steward, which is not a bad position, I suppose.’ She sucked her teeth, so that all the little lines of discontent around her thin lips deepened to crevasses. ‘But I have to confess myself a little disappointed; I had thought you might catch one of the Harris boys.’
‘You make them sound
like fish, Mother, there for the taking.’
‘They say a cunning fisherman can land a whale, if he’s so minded.’
‘Well, even if I were so minded, Margaret Harris is not. She watches me like a hawk and keeps her lads well away from me, all the time throwing Rob in my path. But what’s done is done; this is not a subject I much wish to discuss.’
Her mother pursed her lips. ‘I’m sure your uncle will have more to say at dinner. He is most delighted that you are to be settled.’
At that moment the sun struck through the mist and the spire of the chapel gleamed in golden light.
‘God is smiling on us.’
This was intoned by a tall, weathered-looking man with an eagle’s beak of a nose, a bald pate and a froth of white beard, who now continued: ‘From Heaven the Lord looks down on the Earth and all the nations shall revere His name, and all the kings of Earth His glory.’
He turned his fierce gaze upon the crowd, one by one; and one by one they scuttled inside. At last his glance came to rest on Annie Badcock, standing on the other side of the churchyard wall. A curious expression played across a face as wrinkled as a withered apple, an expression made grotesque by the old woman’s mismatched eyes: the blind one stared right back at him, but the sighted one looked out over the misty bay.
‘Won’t you come in, goodwife, and offer your heart to the Lord?’
Old Annie Badcock raised up her face and grinned her gummy grin, the one that gave small children nightmares. ‘Nay, bless thee, Preacher. I’ve never been nobody’s wife; nor good neither! I’ll stay out here like the old sinner I am and save my own soul.’
‘None but the Lord can save thy soul, old woman.’
‘Be that as it may, I’m off to my cot, Walter Truran.’ And then she swivelled her good eye in Cat’s direction. ‘If thee has the sense the good God gave thee, ye’ll get back in the carriage with thy young man and lay down in his arms. Mark what I say: ye’ll regret it if ye don’t.’