Eppie

by Robertson, Janice

  Dawkin trailed him out. ‘I think I’ll go for a sneak around Jacob’s garden. I’d like to know what competition I’m up against.’

  Like Gillow before him, Dawkin was having a bet with Jacob about who could grow the largest vegetable. This season it was the marrow. Tonight, they were taking them to The Fat Duck, the winner rejoicing in a free tankard of ale from the loser.

  Wakelin cast a critical eye over a row of Brussels sprouts. ‘You’ve gorra spot o’ mould there. Ya need a bit more air atwixt ‘em.’

  ‘Watch it, Wakelin, you’re starting to sound like pa in your old age,’ Eppie teased.

  By his grumpy expression, she guessed he was not amused by the comparison.

  ‘I’m me own man. Always ‘ave been, and always will be.’

  Twiss at his heels, Dawkin wandered across the lane, whistling.

  There was a contented air about the morning. Children played beside Miller’s Bridge, pitching coloured pebbles into a hole in the earth to see who could get the most in to win. Amongst the youngsters were Edmund and Kizzie’s sons, Lucas and William. The boys’ sloping shoulders made them look like miniature versions of their father.

  Men wandered to and from fields. The labourers’ pace of life had definitely slackened since Wakelin had been made bailiff. The men were not grumbling and nor was Gabriel, and they managed to get their work done just the same.

  Eppie joined a group of women who were conversing about the devastating potato harvest in Ireland, and the resulting famine. Stood before the Leiff’s cottage, she caught snippets of the conversation between Dawkin and Jacob about the merits of using whale oil as an insecticide on their plots.

  A handbell rang. It was Nathaniel Green, the tinsmith, come to collect pots for repair.

  Behind him trundled another cart, in the back a foot-pedalled grinding contraption for sharpening tools. The driver, slouched over the reins, wore a battered castor hat, a grey blanket draped over his shoulders.

  There was nothing Eppie needed repairing at the moment; Dawkin happily tackled most maintenance tasks around the cottage. That had included fixing the gate.

  Jacob stood his hoe against the woodshed. ‘I’ve been wantin’ to show you this ram’s head snuff box what our Edmund fetched me back from Litcombe yesterday. It’s gorra fine set o’ curly horns.’

  Twiss padded indoors after Dawkin, tempted by the savoury aroma of roasting bacon.

  Eppie did not want to linger too long in case Martha had woken.

  Having found custom at one of the cottages, the sharpener had abandoned his cart beneath a hawthorn, just beyond Miller’s Bridge. Blackbirds were relishing in the bounty of the tree, its branches dragged down by the rich, ripe berries.

  Returning to the parlour, Eppie stepped into the larder to collect things to make apple chutney. Martha was quiet. She must still be sleeping.

  Only when Eppie turned round, did she see a man standing in the bedchamber, his back to her. ‘Who are you?’ she cried in alarm.

  Slowly the man turned to face her. In his arms he held Martha.

  She rushed forward, the onions scattering around her feet. ‘Give her to me!’

  He took a step backwards. Wrapped around his head, completely covering his face, except for his eyes and mouth, were dirty bandages. The bindings muffled his threatening voice somewhat. ‘I would not be too hasty.’ To make his point, he tilted Martha away from his body, indicating that he could easily drop her upon the stone floor.

  In hopeless desperation, Eppie glanced through the open doorway.

  ‘Nor would it be a good notion to shout for help, not if you care for the safety of your child.’

  ‘Who are you?’ She looked at him long and hard.

  Beneath his old-fashioned coat, he wore a bibbed leather apron. Tattered one-piece leather shoes poked out from leggings of mattress ticking. Around his throat he wore a checked neckerchief. Clearly, he lived rough for he smelt vile, of sweat, straw and leather.

  ‘In Malstowe, where I roam the streets, I am known as Begbroke, the knife-grinder.’

  The bindings around his face were, therefore, presumably to protect his skin from the whirling, hissing stream of sparks which flew from the knives he sharpened.

  It was only when he uttered his next words that her heart missed a beat.

  ‘You, however, Cousin Genevieve, know me by quite a different name.’

  ‘Oh my!’ She cupped her hand over her mouth in fear.

  Stepping into the parlour, his eyes fixed upon her, he passed before the green-stained grandfather clock and kicked the door shut. ‘It has always been my belief that the social classes should remain separate. It does me wonders, therefore, to see you have the sense not to cross that boundary, choosing to reside in this pigsty with that repugnant climbing-boy of yours. Nevertheless, I am exceedingly angry with you, Cousin Genevieve. If it were not for your meddling ways, Tunnygrave Manor would have been mine. Instead, you have left me worse than a pauper. Do you feel gratified knowing what grievance you have caused me? Do you ever give a thought to my wife, Alicia, and our child, for whom I am unable to provide sufficiently?’

  Ice cold, a chill passed through Eppie’s bones. ‘Alicia is dead. You killed her. You hid her body beneath a hearthstone in The Rogues’ Inn. You blamed Hurry Eades for the deed and had him hung.’

  ‘Eades had no right to prosper in life. The son of a farm labourer, he dragged himself up until he thought himself my better.’ He glanced through the window. ‘Where is that chucklehead, Dick? Why hasn’t he saddled my horse?’

  It swiftly dawned upon Eppie that Thurstan had drifted into a state of insanity. ‘I am truly sorry for you.’

  He glared at her. ‘I have not come here to gain your pity!’

  Martha became restless.

  ‘Here, take my son.’

  Eppie’s relief at having her child in her arms was immeasurable. ‘Perhaps,’ she thought, ‘if I do not rouse Thurstan’s wrath, if I play upon his deranged mind, I might have a chance to escape from the cottage and seek help from the labourers chatting in the lane.’ She said the first thing that popped into her head. ‘Did you know Gabriel’s got his numbers all wrong again? His papers are a right mess of blots.’

  ‘Blots?’

  ‘You can’t have forgotten how bad his work is?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten, you idiot boy. Do you take me for a fool?’

  Edging her way towards the door, she said chirpily, ‘Let’s nip to the Brown Room. You can give Gabriel a sound thrashing.’ She placed her hand upon the latch.

  He grabbed her by the elbow. ‘Not so fast, Cousin Genevieve!’

  When she turned to face him, she saw that the vacant look in his eyes had vanished.

  ‘Living close to the earth has made you as cunning as a fox, but what you should know by now is that no one outwits me.’ He thrust her towards the table. Ready to intercept should she attempt to flee, he took his place on the comb-back chair opposite her.

  Bubbling with anger and frustration, she asked, ‘Why have you come here? What do you want?’

  ‘Talia.’

  ‘Talia is dead. I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘When I was a boy, my father told me tales about supernatural beings. The stories enthralled me. My mother and father regularly held plays at our house in London. They and their friends dressed as ghosts. Guests sat around the entrance hall, petrified. Ever since, I have believed a soul is capable of survival outside of flesh and bone.’

  Eagerness flickered in his bloodshot eyes. ‘Talia has never haunted me, but she comes to you, does she not? At the cotton mill, when I took hold of the locket, I saw her leading the ghosts. I know you saw her also for I saw your look of astonishment.’ A flash of anger hardened his expression. ‘Even Dung Heap has seen her ghost. After he stole you from the manor, I saw him standing before Shivering Falls. He looked up at the stone bridge and shouted, “You won’t regret this, Talia. My ma will love her.” ’

  ‘Wake
lin has seen Talia’s ghost?’ Eppie said, stunned. ‘He never told me.’

  ‘How dare she haunt that village idiot and not me?’

  ‘Why would you want her to haunt you? After all, you killed her because she did not return your affection. My mother told me so, shortly before her own death.’

  ‘I loved Talia!’ he declared vehemently.

  ‘If you did, that was a fine way to show your love, making her life miserable by pestering her.’

  ‘No matter how hostile Talia was towards me I never wished her any harm. I only wished to be close to her so that I might protect her.’

  ‘Why would she need your protection?’

  He drew off his hat and slowly began to unburden himself of his disguise. It was as though he needed her to see the solemnity in his face. ‘The night my uncle went to drown the kittens I was there, in the woods. A short while earlier my mother had disturbed my aunt and uncle whilst they were entertaining the Bulwars. She had run into the garden, shrieking and laughing in a crazed manner. Before I could lay my hands upon her and drag her back to her bedchamber, she raced off, heading towards the bothy.

  ‘One of the gardener’s boys said my mother had startled them by bursting upon them, screaming Ghostie! Ghostie! She said she intended to thump on all the cottage doors. How I loathed my mother for her idiocy!

  ‘I went in search of her, to threaten her to keep her peace. As I was approaching Shivering Falls, I saw your father. In his hands he clutched my cousins’ kittens. I watched him kneel beside the pool at Shivering Falls and dunk the creatures beneath the water. After he left, I was about to take a look when I saw Dung Heap skulking about. He grabbed a stick and dragged out one of the kittens. He was speaking to it, so I guessed it was still alive.

  ‘Talia must have gone down the tunnel which leads from the nursery because I saw her clambering down the rocks. Dung Heap saw her also and hid behind a bush. She did not see me squatting beside the flooded stream as she ran past. By then Dung Heap was making off, presumably homeward. I heard him sniggering about my mother. How dare he? I would not tolerate his amusement at my mother’s shameful state of mind.

  ‘It was then that I spotted the other kitten, caught amongst the roots of a willow which dipped into the stream. I did not want to touch the repulsive thing. I thought, though, that if I fished it out, Talia would look upon me with favour.

  ‘After I had given her the kitten, I would go to Dung Heap and demand that he hand over the other creature. I hated to think of him bragging to Talia about how clever he had been in rescuing it; I did not want her to have any reason to think about that simpleton with kindness.

  ‘I followed Talia to the ravine. I had not realised that, although the kitten was alive when I freed it, it was dead when I placed it in her hands. I tried to comfort Talia, to take her into my arms. She thrust me off.’

  The last of the bindings fell from his face.

  Eppie was shocked by the change in him, his hair almost all fallen away.

  Hands shaking, he tugged out remaining eyelashes and rubbed them across his lips as though the tingling sensation would bring relief. ‘In misery, I walked away. I had not gone far when I heard my mother cackling. She was jealous of my love for your sister and had often told me that she intended to murder her.

  ‘I knew this was the moment when, believing she had found Talia alone, my mother would take her revenge. Before she could attack, I raced back and hit her with a stone. And I, I who loved Talia so dearly, I who had come to her rescue, was so furious with her clawing at my arm, urging me to stop striking my mother, that I span around and thrust her away. I had not realised we were so close to the cliff edge.’

  Eppie shuddered, recalling the time she had chased Twiss to the ravine and seen her sister’s ghostly body buffeted by the battering waters.

  ‘Your father kept a theatre of insects which he displayed in a Cabinet of Curiosities alongside other natural wonders. I often saw Talia gazing upon the creatures in the cabinet. She was especially fascinated by the insects. Amongst them I discovered a cicada which had been trapped in a slither of amber. The cicada is imbued with the mystical quality of life everlasting. I took the insect and paid a London jeweller to execute intricate ornamentation work upon Talia’s locket. I considered it highly likely that, although Talia would be amazed to discover the insect fixed into her locket, she would still wish to wear it. If my mother carried out her dreadful deed then, by keeping the cicada close to her heart, Talia’s soul would never rest.’

  He was quiet for a moment, recalling the horrific time of Talia’s death. When he spoke again it was in a despairing voice. ‘She was barely alive when I drew her from the river. As she lay dying in my arms, I pleaded with her not to leave me, to haunt me.’

  Eppie was moved greatly, both to sympathy and to an appreciation of Thurstan’s tormented spirit, to learn of the strength of his love for her sister, a love so intense that it breached the boundaries of life and death. However, she could not condone what he had done in tricking her sister. ‘It is a terrible thing to wish eternal existence upon someone you love. Whilst Talia stays fixed in time, she will see all her loved ones die, one by one, until, finally, she walks this earth alone.’

  ‘Don’t you see? By giving Talia a token of everlasting life I gave her the freedom in death that she never had in life. Always, though, she has shunned me.’

  ‘Surely you can understand why?’

  Scarred by suffering, he spoke listlessly. ‘I know why. She is repulsed by my vicious nature. In death, she continues to hate me. But I will no longer stand for her wilfulness. You must make her submit to my demands!’

  ‘I can’t make Talia do anything!’ Eppie would not voice her thought that, even if she could make her sister appear just by wishing this, she would not. She could think of nothing worse than haunting someone as brutal as her cousin.

  ‘You have to, before it is too late! I am not thinking about myself, I am thinking about her. Surely you can see that I am dying? She must have the chance to rid herself of the cicada, the bond which holds her to her earthly existence, if she is to have the chance to go to heaven.’

  In anguish, he fell to his knees and scrabbled with a clutter of tools which Dawkin had left beside the dresser: a poleaxe, meat cleaver and turnip snagger. ‘I caught this snivelling pustule making off with these manorial church treasures.’

  Bemused by the abrupt shift in her cousin’s train of thoughts and his erratic behaviour, she coaxed, ‘Why don’t you rest? Have something to eat?’

  From an ample pocket of his coat he fetched out a periwig and placed it upon his head. ‘Never underestimate a sheep, Obadiah.’

  The wig looked exactly like Robert du Quesne’s; the one Talia had blasted into a prickly bush.

  She must have shown something of her wonder in her face.

  ‘I am not a pleasant sight, I grant you. Daily I crawl out of a filthy cellar in River View House to scrape a living on the streets. My hogs are the largest you would ever wish to set eyes upon, with immense hocks and bellies.’

  Eppie vividly recalled the ice market and hearing these same words uttered by her father to Squire Bulwar. ‘You are ill. Let me help.’

  His face creased in loathing. ‘I want no help from you, swine!’ Almost at the same moment as he uttered these words, he turned his head sharply towards the door.

  Eppie had also caught the sound of Dawkin whistling some out-of-tune swashbuckling ballad as he sauntered up the garden path. The door opened and he strode in. Catching sight of Thurstan’s gaunt face topped by du Quesne’s grimy wig, his smile fell. ‘Eppie?’

  Thurstan pushed past him, and ran.

  Dawkin enfolded Eppie and Martha in his arms. ‘Has he hurt you?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ she replied, shaken.

  ‘It’s Thurstan du Quesne!’ The shouts of other men quickly echoed that of the first man. These were followed by the sound of running steps as farm labourers gave chase.

  Dawkin, too, to
re out of the cottage.

  Eppie could not stem the flood of hatred towards Thurstan. However, she felt a sense of sorrow for her cousin. Whatever their differing life’s circumstances, there existed between them that strange pull of kinship. How frightening he had seemed in his power, how pitiful he appeared in defeat. Acutely, she sensed the grave injustices in his life, the traumas that had tripped him into a state of madness. He was a victim of circumstances, a misunderstood monster. He at least deserved the dignity of a natural death, not to dangle at the end of a rope. Moreover, Talia must have the chance to relinquish the cicada. Hastily, she stepped beneath the porch.

  Trying to reach his cart, Thurstan made a desperate bid to avoid the open arms of men as they made to grab him.

  ‘Careful!’ Tom shouted. ‘He’s bound to have a knife.’

  At these words, several women and children ran to the safety of their cottages, screaming.

  Thurstan’s way was blocked further along the lane as more labourers emerged from the entrance to a field. He tore back across Miller’s Bridge.

  A potato fork in his hands, its prongs pointed forwards, Jacob courageously advanced like a wasp bent on stinging its victim. Though the sight of the harmless old man would not scare a sparrow and, moreover, the prongs were topped with iron bobbles, to protect the potatoes during digging, it was too much for Thurstan. Emitting a cry of despair, he raced off alongside the stream.

  By now even more men had joined the chase.

  ‘After the scum!’ Wakelin bawled. ‘Some of you go over the packhorse bridge and cut him off in the woodland.’

  Women and children re-emerged and stood huddled on the lane, chattering excitedly, their eyes wide with anticipation.

  ‘Perhaps I could reach Thurstan before the men do,’ Eppie pondered frantically. ‘I could lead him to a place of sanctuary.’ Hurrying towards Kizzie, she passed Martha into her arms, and ran.

  By the time she reached Shivering Falls, the villagers were nowhere in sight. Enlivened by never-ending streaks of silver arrows the cascade, tumbling over the precipice, would have made the woodland sleepy with its rhythmical pulse were it not for the cries of men cutting through the undergrowth.