by Bolton, Ani
Just as I suspected, I thought with satisfaction.
“Roger calls Damon and me cousin, but the fact is we are very distantly related. Roger lives on the original property, Lyhalis. It overlooks the sea.”
“Lyhalis overlooks the sea? How thrilling.”
“I hate the salt air. Anyway, to the . . . murder.” She lowered her voice dramatically, and I leaned closer.
“Heron Penwyth, Roger’s father, brought home a woman from the outer islands, a miserable place with stunted people, Mama says, but Heron had fallen madly in love with Morgreth, as she was called. They say she had a rope of golden hair as thick as a man’s arm, with green eyes like a cat’s.”
“Green eyes,” I repeated.
“They also say she bewitched Heron, for no one trusts the folk of the Isles. Well, she must have done so, for he married his lowborn lover, and none of the Polite ever visited him again. When Roger was born, there was no christening in the church, nor any At Home celebration, though they did throw coin before the vestry in Lyhalis village. No one had ever seen Roger publicly, and it seemed like they were hiding him. The gossips also say that my father had actually gone down to Lyhalis to see Roger, for my father had always remained on good terms with Heron . . . perhaps he was the only one to do so, for Roger’s father sounds like a nasty brute not unlike Roger himself. But Heron threw him out.”
“How odd!”
Susannah’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But the story grows odder. Lindy Tompkins, the woman who brings the fresh rushes, told me that Morgreth had put a spell on Heron to drive him to madness so that she could have Lyhalis all to herself. Heron had taken to marking his arms with a penknife, like he was drawing on his own flesh!”
I gasped, and she shivered deliciously.
“Yes, and he had begun to let his hair grow in, and to avoid wearing his wig. Lindy Tompkins confirms that my father visited Lyhalis as often as every day, he had grown so worried about Heron and his mad behavior. But Morgreth put such a strong spell on Heron that he was enslaved to her will and would hear nothing against his wife. Then, one night, Morgreth acted.”
I clutched the neglected linen on my lap.
“Morgreth bewitched Heron to drown himself in Lyhalis cove. Oh, it was raining cats and kittens, Lindy says, on a black night with a blood moon rising. But Morgreth had not bargained that her spell might take a turn. Heron brought Roger with him down to the cove . . . and there he tried to drown his own son.”
A muffled moan escaped my lips.
“Yes, horrible,” Susannah agreed with a smile of relish. “But Morgreth, seeing that her spell had gone awry, saved Roger. No one knows how, for Heron was a big man, they say, and in his prime quite strong, but she wrested her baby away from her husband as they floundered in the rising surf. Heron lost his balance and fell under the waves, but Morgreth managed to put Roger on the flat rock shelf that juts out from the cliff’s edge in Lyhalis cove. Somehow she lost her grip and fell back into the water where the current pulled her under.”
“Oh no,” I whispered.
“Oh yes. Heron and Morgreth both drowned. They never found their bodies, not that that isn’t common with the dangerous currents. The servants fetched Roger, for they knew something had gone amiss, and brought him to the Hermitage.”
“Here?” I exclaimed, surprised.
“Yes. Roger lived here until he had a terrible quarrel with my mother, and left. He was about fifteen years old, I think, but she did not stop him; they hated each other. I was glad he was gone, too. He was a beast to live with, I can tell you. Once he shouted at me in a horrid manner when I borrowed some sketching pencils and paper from his workbook. How was I to know I had spoiled his portfolio?” She sniffed in irritated reminiscence. “Mama had him whipped for insolence.”
I thought of the haunted edge feathering Roger’s eyes, the famous green eyes inherited from his witch-mother. I thought too of my own marred bloodline, and felt a certain sympathy for him. “I don’t wonder why he was beastly. He had a lot to bear.”
“I suppose.” Now that her story had finished, she moodily picked at the fraying edge of her linen sampler. “Where did you say Roger found you yesterday?”
“At a place he called Tol-Pedn-Penwith.”
My mind skittered from the memory; me, on the tip of the rocky tower, black chasm at my feet, arms spread, ready to fly . . .
“Tol-Pedn-Penwith,” she repeated. “How did you get so far on your . . . oh lord.”
A trace of guilt finally crept into her voice. I looked up quickly to find her shrugging. “Make sense that Roger would find you there,” she said. “He was probably coming home from visiting the woman he uses.”
“He uses?”
“Don’t be so ladylike. His lover. You do know what that is, I suppose? She lives out there, Roger’s woman.”
“Roger has a lover?” My mind had difficulty grasping it. Roger did not seem the type to keep a woman, unlike, I realized reluctantly, the suave Damon.
“Her name is Tamzin Fulby. She lives alone in an old tinner’s cottage near that tor. Lord, how I envy her independence! No one bothers her out there except for Roger.”
Susannah eyed her sampler critically. “They say Tamzin is a witch. Would fit, too, if she is. Sons are like their fathers, so I suppose Roger inherited his taste for them.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
My head buzzed with Susannah’s story for the rest of the afternoon and most of the next day while I sorted beads at Lady Penwyth’s request. I did not wonder any longer about the source of Roger Penwyth’s melancholia--clearly it was the result of an unhappy history. But I was curious at what had happened between Lady Penwyth and Roger to make them dislike each other so much that he would leave the Hermitage at a fairly tender age.
I also curious why Roger would take a witch for a lover when one had killed his father.
I stole a glance at Lady Penwyth’s serene profile as she sat at the opposite end of the sopha table, absorbed in the beadwork. I held no doubt she could fly into a terrible temper, if Jenny’s whipped back were any indication.
“And have you heard from my sister Sarah?” Lady Penwyth said as I stared at her, pondering. She had not looked up from the purse she had been embellishing with amber-glass beads.
“I . . . no . . . that is, she sent me a letter begging me to mind my manner, and if you use the New Style calendar to mark the year instead of the Old Style, that I might be taught it. Oh, and she sends you her love, I forgot to say . . . ”
“Of course she does, don’t trouble yourself over the omission,” she said, sleekly cutting off my stammers.
Carefully she selected a fat bead gleaming with green-black iridescence, a beetle on the end of her needle. “I noticed a rather large box had come with the Express.”
“Oh! My stepmother had sent me some things from a dressmaker in London.”
“London! My word.”
An elegant finger stirred the collection of beads.
I had the sense that she was waiting for elaboration, so I continued. “It contained a tin of powdering paste for my hair.”
“Ah-hm?”
The fingers stirred again.
“And a few gowns,” I finished.
Lady Penwyth smiled. “My sister is thoughtful,” she said, delicately plucking another bead from the box.
I felt it prudent to nod and focus my attention back to the tray before me. I did not want to say that the box had been Sarah Eames’ way of hinting that I should exert myself socially.
“In the summer months here those with property are too busy with harvest to have much time for anything more elaborate than a card party,” Lady Penwyth continued. “But in the fall there is a subscription assembly at St. Ives, and many other delightful occasions to celebrate hunting season, so you may not have to wait long to open your tin of powder yet.”
I murmured indistinguishably and ignored the familiar lunge of dread in my chest.
Lady Penwyth licked the tip of her
needle and picked up another bead.
“Damon has returned from his engagement in Hayle,” she said. “So perhaps we shall see one of your new gowns tonight at family supper.”
Beads soared through the air as I knocked the box over. With apologies I clumsily knelt on the carpet to scoop up the tiny colored globes scattering like rainbow mercury, biting my lip at the hours of work wasted.
“Never mind, Miss Eames,” Lady Penwyth sighed wearily. “I’ll ring for Nanny.”
###
It had been seven days since Lady Penwyth had asked Jenny to maid me; now she scratched on my chamber’s door and bade me let her enter.
Since it was never my habit to question anyone, even a servant, I let her in without comment on her absence.
In any case I was beginning to wonder how I would dress for family supper, eyeing a particularly complicated frock that Sarah Eames had sent from London. The ice-blue color could only be achieved by a careful wash of indigo dye and would need to be sponged rather than scrubbed in a tub. The frock’s alarmingly low-cut stomacher was embroidered with seed-pearls that snagged the lace fall edging the elbow-length sleeves, and the petticoat, bucked and starched until it was as stiff as a sheaf of hay, would be certain to bang against my bad foot instead of swishing easily.
“A fine dress, miss,” Jenny said to me as she shook out the folds. A trace of envy ghosted across her porcelain face, and her cornflower blue eyes, lashed thickly with a black fringe, caressed the fabric. “The cloth be so light.”
“It is French cambric,” I answered, allowing her to stroke the sleeve. When would she ever wear such a thing? I could not deny the girl, born in a cottage instead of a house, the brief pleasure.
“French cambric,” she repeated carefully, tasting the syllables on her tongue. “Mistress don’t have cambric among her things, I know. Nor Miss Susannah. Be it a new fashion?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“And this?” She held up a buffon, woven with gossamer threads that sparkled in the waning sunlight. I explained that the scarf was to wrap about my neck and bust, for I did not like the display that the low-cut stomacher afforded my breasts.
A touch of scorn, swiftly veiled, quirked her mouth. Jenny might never hesitate to use any weapon at hand against a man, but I was not so bold.
“And what be this?” she asked, pointing to Pretty Peter in his cage. “I never seen an animal kept indoors except for rattailed spaniels. Another fashion?”
“Of a sort. Canary birds are kept for their song, but I don’t know how fashionable the practice is.”
She asked me a few more questions about the fripperies coming out of my London-box. I answered her questions readily, feeling no annoyance. Jenny plainly hungered to learn about life above stairs. I saw in her the flame of envy, the kind that had driven my mother toward her excesses and her successes.
A wave of sympathy for the girl doomed to drudgery rose in me.
She caught it and returned an unpleasantly mocking smile as if it were I who should be pitied. Deftly she helped lace the stiff stomacher to the mantua properly, pulling the cords securely but not tightly. She expertly draped the buffon, and in two minutes I was dressed, a great improvement over Nanny’s clumsy work. She also pulled my wild hair into a charming knot at the back of my neck.
The maid showed her training, and I could see now how thoughtful Lady Penwyth had been to give her to me. But I could not like her. She attended me with an air of one who thought the tasks beneath her. Several times I saw her smirking in the mirror as she stood behind me threading a ribbon through my curls. I read her thoughts all too well: by birth I was above her, but in personal attraction far below.
And in this world, what would be of greater advantage in the end?
###
The next morning, I could no longer contain myself. My affinity clamored for release and I knew that if I did not allow the flow I would soon sicken.
I made my way to the walled garden. The scent of dirt baking under the flaming summer sun filled my mouth with sweetness. I drowned in a cauldron of whispers from the plants tangling over themselves to be heard, while the land flinched from me like an animal licking a barely-healed wound. Dimly I sensed that it was still recovering from a rupture, but my skill in reading was weak from disuse, half-taught secrets, and a distracting memory from the previous evening . . .
. . . a card blown under the japponaised cabinet as the whist table was being put up . . . Lady Penwyth’s entreaties that I might find it while she fussed over the chits and notes . . . two polished shoe tips breaking into my vision while I hunched over my knees on the floor . . .
“I think I have what you seek.”
The breath was warm on my ear as Damon spoke.
I scrambled up immediately, heart fluttering.
He held up the missing knave of hearts between two fingers.
“You are a rogue, sir,” I said with a shaky laugh. “I’ve been on my knees this quarter of an hour searching while you watched. How long would you have let me gone on?”
“Not much longer,” he replied. The tip of his tongue came out the side of his mouth in a wicked grin. “Your diligence has been proven.”
I could not tell if he made me a sly object of fun or paid me a compliment, but in the next instant he reached for my hand and pressed the card in my palm. “And it has done my heart a world of good to see a woman down where men usually dwell,” he murmured in that half-mocking way of his before he bowed and departed.
My hand felt scorched where he had touched it, burning me down through my soles.
Now I sat gazing dreamily at that hand, curled like an autumn leaf on my lap, expecting to see blisters where his fingers sizzled my flesh. Gradually the sun slumped lower, and it took the sigh of the myrtle blossoms preparing for the drenching of night insects to startle me out of my reverie.
I jumped up and hurried to the wrought-iron gate, dodging vines reaching out to hamper me. As I avoided the claws of an insistent thatch of bittersweet, my bad ankle banged against something hard.
I parted the bittersweet. Two spheres of mildewed granite huddled within the prickles, balanced upon each other like a snow-maiden the children would make in the North. The top sphere of granite had been hollowed out in the shape of a ring.
“A giant’s wedding ring,” I murmured.
It was a strange object, an ancient object, and without conscious thought my hand reached out to it.
Hoof beats and the swish of a horse’s tail on the other side of the wall made me pause.
“Did you see him?”
It was Susannah. She spoke with an eager breathlessness.
But it was another familiar, impatient voice that made me shrink silently into the shadow of the wall near the gate. Damon.
“No. He wasn’t at The Three Lions, and I had no time to go to the quays today.”
Susannah made a sound of disappointment I strained to hear over the thumping of my heart. The horse jangled its bridle, as if jerking its head.
“Sister, I warn you that you had better leave off this foolish fancy of yours. Our mother will never countenance it. For that matter, neither will I.”
“But you like him! You said he was one of the best fellows in the district.”
“A man who can tell an amusing ditty while in his cups is very different from the sort who is suitable for marriage to one of us. Look higher or Mama will do the looking for you.”
“I suppose you are speaking from experience now?”
There was no answer.
Susannah laughed unpleasantly. “You’d better pay less attention to your own amusements and more attention to our little brown sparrow with her broken wing if you wish to win her. Others have been sniffing around the heiress.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only that Miss Persia Eames has seen more of dear Cousin Roger this summer than we have. You know he brought her home that day she got lost on the moors.”
“And whose fa
ult was that? What the devil were you about to let her wander away? She could have been killed out there. You know what the bogs are like.”
I warmed to the concern in Damon’s voice.
“How was I to know she’d go so far with that foot of hers?” Susannah replied defensively. “If she had stayed put I would have come back for her. I only meant to be gone a few minutes, and then she spoiled--never mind.”
“What . . . oh, good God, don’t tell me you met him out there!”
“Well, what if I did? And the high-and-mighty manner is rich coming from you. I know all about your dolly-mops, so don’t speak to me about soiling myself with the lower orders.”
“That is entirely different, and you know it.”
“But why? Why is it different for you and not me?”
Baffled rage suffused her voice, and I would have felt sorry for her if I had not been grappling with the news that Damon indeed kept a mistress or two. The pain was of a queer sort, wounding but not fatal.
“Don’t be a damned fool. It is the way of the world,” Damon replied impatiently. “I wouldn’t put it past Mama to pack you off if she got wind of your little amusement with Jack Toddy. And don’t worry about Miss Eames and me. I’ve got that well in hand.”
“I wouldn’t count on anything yet, Damon. You did not see the way that Roger was looking at her when he fetched her from St. Ives.”
“And what way was that?” murmured a buttery voice.
“Papa!” Susannah gasped. Her horse whickered, hooves scraping the ground.
“We did not see you, sir.” Damon said it carefully.
“Of course you did not. Your heads were bent together like gossiping housemaids. Now, what was this about Roger and our guest?”
“Nothing,” Susannah muttered. “Only that he seems to have taken an interest in Miss Eames, probably to spite us.”