Poet's Cottage

by Josephine Pennicott

  Much of Violet’s conversation revolved around her mother’s unreasonableness. ‘Mother is always going on in the most boring way you could imagine about the suffering poor of Pencubitt. How we have to count our blessings and do good works. I mean, it’s so boring! I can’t help it if I was born into money, can I? Are the suffering poor given endless lectures by their good parents about the suffering rich? Rather not, I wager! Life is so beastly and unfair!’ (This I had to mentally agree with, thinking of how much money had been wasted on her education.)

  Or – ‘If only Mother would agree to sail to America. I’d go to Los Angeles and meet Mr Gable! I do think he’s so handsome and so much more desirable than any other man in Tasmania. Fred Astaire cannot come close. Nor even Rudolph Valentino. Both so boring! I had a dream last night. Mr Gable was kissing me and he put his hand on my breast. It was so thrilling!’

  Then: ‘Mother, of course – and mind, don’t repeat a word of this. You must take it to your grave! Do you cross your heart and hope to die?’ The wretched girl made me link our little fingers and cross our hearts before she continued. ‘Mother knows a woman in Hobart who remembers Pearl when she was a little girl. Pearl’s family came out from England on the Lady Mary Anne on some free ticket. Her family, as Mother puts it, were not of good character.’ Finally I began to listen in earnest to what she was saying. ‘Pearl’s mother was said to be insane. Yes, really insane. She killed herself shortly after arriving in Hobart. She had lost a child on the voyage out. I wonder how? Overboard?’ She giggled at some morbid imagining that pleased her before continuing with round eyes, lowering her voice dramatically. ‘They believe it unhinged her totally. Pearl’s father had to bring up the remaining children. He was by all accounts a cold fish and a bore. Pearl was left to fend for herself. It explains her rather odd stories and manner, don’t you think?’ She tittered. ‘I hope she doesn’t take after her mother and do anything silly. She’s always threatening to kill herself if she has to stay in Pencubitt forever. I think they’re all so naughty and daring to be making love with each other in the way they are. Mother gets so angry when I try to talk about it. Fancy Maxwell sleeping with that pudding Angel! He’s not bad looking and she’s like a fruitcake with legs.’ She paused and I had to resist the urge to encourage her to go on. So my suspicions were true. Maxwell, for whatever reason, was having an affair with Angel.

  ‘I know why Pearl encourages it.’ Violet sensed she now had my full attention and went on triumphantly. ‘She told me. She wants to be free to continue her affair with that smelly fisherman.’ She snorted with laughter. ‘She told me that he really is an incredible – well, I can’t say the exact word she said, but she meant lover. Yes! She did say that! Don’t look at me like that! She really is something, isn’t she? I believe she tried to have an affair with me once. She lured me up to her bedroom on some pretence and . . .’

  I had heard enough. I interrupted whatever sordid story she was about to confide with a curt query on whether her mother would be looking for her. And what would her mother think if she knew Violet was keeping the staff from their duties?

  The stupid girl finally left, but not before commenting on how red my face was and promising to show me a ‘secret’ in Blackness, something she assured me I would love. She kissed me goodbye in a clinging, unhealthy way. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come to work here, Birdie. It does get too dull for words when I’m here by myself with only dreary Mother. It’s strange – I used to think you were boring and old-maidish but now I feel as if we can be friends. I do miss my girlfriends from school and Pearl’s so busy with her fisherman. We will be friends, won’t we, Birdie? Won’t Pearl be surprised if we become good friends too!’

  I agreed that yes, Pearl would be surprised. She raised her arms above her head, pirouetting slowly, showing off for me. She knew that I was thinking her beautiful in that moment. With her blonde curls and porcelain skin she resembled a tiny doll as she danced on the lawn bathed in sunlight. Then she ran back to the house, blowing me kisses as she went and promising to reveal her ‘secret’ tomorrow. I’m afraid I gave this promise not a second’s thought; it all seemed to me like the childish games of a girl who had far too much time on her hands and an empty head to fill with fantasies. If I thought anything of what she had to show me I imagined a scrapbook of movie-star clippings or some other nonsense.

  Yet as I watched her run into the shadows of Blackness House, lines from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet came to me:

  Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,

  To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,

  And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

  Or, if I live, is it not very like

  The horrible conceit of death and night,

  Together with the terror of the place –

  As in a vault, an ancient receptacle

  Where for this many hundred years the bones

  Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d;

  Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,

  Lies fest’ring in his shroud; where, as they say,

  At some hours in the night spirits resort –

  Alack, alack, is it not like that I,

  So early waking – what with loathsome smells,

  And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,

  That living mortals, hearing them, run mad . . .

  It was as if a shadow had fallen upon me and I felt suddenly as if beauty, youth, friendship and sunshine were all so transitory. I saw the truth: that mankind carves such an impermanent mark upon the earth. We are the living ghosts, poor, vague dreams of ourselves, believing each moment to last forever, when we are as insubstantial as clouds.

  While I sat there the workmen’s voices had increased in volume. I looked over, sensing some conflict, and saw several men walking away from the house. I noticed that they were coming from the old chapel Mr Hellyer had built after the death of his wife. Mrs Bydrenbaugh’s recent decision to restore the chapel into an outside room for Violet wasn’t popular with the tradesmen, and the Pencubitt rumour-mongers claimed there was an increase of spirit sightings at Blackness House since work had begun there. Even in these hard times, some men had refused the job from the start. Now, four local men walked out of the main gates of Blackness House while the rest of the men sent jeering cries in their direction. I saw Mrs Bydrenbaugh run out of the house to talk to the manager.

  Old Tom the gardener, with his assistant Percy, headed towards me, pushing a wheelbarrow. I had known Tom since I was a small child and enjoyed chatting with him. Driven by curiosity, I enquired as to what had frightened the men.

  He laughed scornfully as he lifted a bag of horse manure from the wheelbarrow with an ease that would have credited a much younger man. ‘All this rubbish talk about ghosts! Should be ashamed of themselves. Young Bertie went as well, and him with fourteen hungry bellies to feed! Grown men squawking about spirits. I never heard such rubbish. Here, spread that manure right, boy!’ Old Tom raised his eyebrows to me in a meaningful manner and indicated Percy. ‘He’s terrified as well but I won’t let him go. No, he’s staying with old Tom. I’ve worked at Blackness House since I was in short pants and I never seen a ghost! My old dad reckoned he saw her but he liked the cider a bit too much, if you know what I mean, Miss Birdie. My dad always seemed to see her when he’d had a few ciders.’ He winked and laughed at his own joke.

  ‘See who?’ I asked.

  ‘The cloaked woman, Miss Birdie. The woman they claim is haunting them since they found the walled-in hiding room in the chapel. There was bones there and scratching on the wall.’ He glanced back at the house. ‘They claim it was Hellyer’s wife. That she went mad after her child died and he locked her in there to starve to death. Now her spirit is restless because her resting place is being destroyed. Have you heard such a piece of codswallop?’ He laughed until he broke into coughing. ‘Hang on, here comes the boss. I had best look steady with the roses.’ He vanished amongst the nearby
rose bushes to make a show of tending to the flowers and barking orders at Percy.

  Mrs Bydrenbaugh sat down next to me on the garden bench and peered at my workbook. She was perspiring and looked agitated. ‘Violet said it was good and it is. No doubt you’ve witnessed those fools walking off today and listened to old Tom’s gossip?’ She directed a sharp look at the rose bushes where I knew both Tom and Percy were all ears. ‘I would appreciate it if you kept what happened here today to yourself. I find it hard enough to get good help without more hysterical men refusing to work. They’re a bunch of layabouts who find a few old animal bones and start whimpering about spirits being after them. I only give thanks that Violet’s father, Charles, is dead – he couldn’t abide lazy tradesmen.’

  ‘You don’t believe in ghosts?’ I dared to ask her.

  There was a brief silence while she studied the funeral monument. ‘I believe in whispers from the past that some people may be sensitive to. I have never seen this cloaked woman they refer to but I do feel her presence at times, like some left-over shadow that I may bump into as I go about my day. This house is full of stories and secrets.’ She continued in an unconscious echo of Violet’s earlier statement: ‘I do not believe in wild tales that get bigger with each telling as idle workmen look for excuses to drink their wages away. I need more people like old Tom here: no brains, little imagination and good with their hands.’

  As she went on in this ranting manner I began to sense the blood of her ancestors in her veins. The steely vision and determination that had drawn Hellyer to recreate an English country home in such desolate Tasmanian wilderness only to see his adored youngest daughter killed in front of him in the wagon he had made for her, followed by his wife’s death less than a year afterwards. Most Pencubitt locals believed she died of grief: it was said that her hair had turned white with shock when she ran out of the house to see her child lying bloody and broken in the driveway. Perhaps, as Mrs Bydrenbaugh had said, it was just a story that had got larger with the telling.

  Finally she stopped, and we sat in an uneasy silence; I sensed that Mrs Bydrenbaugh wished to confide something further but I was not prepared for her next words. ‘I know you and I share an appreciation of history; I only wish Violet had inherited the same. She’s a good girl but takes after her late father and is totally empty-headed. If the conversation doesn’t involve an American moving-picture star or some silly popular tune she has no interest. I can sense you are like me and find some romance in the whispers from the past.’

  I was surprised and, I admit, flattered by her statement. In one morning, I had received friendly advances from both the mother and daughter of Blackness House. When Mrs Bydrenbaugh then offered to show me the room the men had uncovered, I gratefully accepted, after promising her I would not write about it until I had her permission to do so.

  Of course, by recording this I am breaking that vow, but I do not think it will matter. Nor do I think she would care. For how were we to guess on that beautiful summer’s day when the air was scented with so much hope that there would be such tragedy to come at Blackness House and Poet’s Cottage? As I followed her through the rose garden towards the sprawling house there was no hint of the dark times ahead.

  A group of men could be heard in heated discussion as we approached. We were at the back of the house where hens clucked around the washhouse and the old privy; further back, next to the stone school and across from the herb garden, was the small chapel. The school was still used for public meetings. The chapel, however, was never used these days, until Mrs Bydrenbaugh’s fateful decision to restore it for Violet’s use.

  The workmen fell silent when they saw us. Some removed their caps. I had known these men all my life but I could sense their resentment towards us, which puzzled me. Tools of their trade were scattered around them and dust still danced in the air. I glanced in the door of the small dark chapel, curious as to what could have provoked such a reaction.

  ‘Everything settled, Peter?’ Mrs Bydrenbaugh snapped at the foreman. ‘I’ve brought Miss Pinkerton to have a look at your secret room. She’s not going to turn tail and run for the comfort of the ale jug, unlike some of your men. Is it safe for her to enter? Did you beat for snakes inside?’

  ‘We did, madam. There were a couple of tiger snakes but we got rid of them.’ He pointed to the back fence where two large snakes hung.

  ‘Well, at least your men are good for something,’ Mrs Bydrenbaugh said. She shook her head in disapproval. ‘Snivelling over ghosts! I never heard such rubbish!’

  ‘I told them that, madam,’ Peter said. He glanced at me and I could see his eyes were uneasy despite his words.

  The three of us stepped inside. Work had been hastily abandoned; tools lay on the ground, lunches half-unwrapped next to them. Edward Hellyer had built the chapel in commemoration of his wife Elizabeth and for private family worship. I had been inside it before and knew it was simple and rustic. The sandstone was crumbling in places and there were half a dozen pews and a small wooden altar. A tiny stained-glass window provided red-tinged light. Large cobwebs hung from the roof and Peter cautioned us about walking into them.

  ‘Not a lot of work done here!’ Mrs Bydrenbaugh grumbled. ‘It’s behind the altar,’ she said to me. ‘Mind your step, there could be more snakes.’ I privately doubted that any snake would dare to slither near Mrs Bydrenbaugh, but kept a close eye out just in case.

  I spotted it immediately – a large hole knocked through the wall – and I soon saw why the men were so afraid. Hidden behind the wall was a tiny room. If I stretched out my arms, I could touch the wall on either side. A pile of mouldy rags lay in one corner, long rotted. Noticing some words scratched into the stone, I peered closer and read: I FORGIVE YOU. GOD HELP ME.

  I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. My breath shortened and the urge to flee was powerful. Something terrible had happened inside this tiny chamber, a dark secret now torn open. I understood why some of the men had run to where there was life and laughter.

  I looked back at Mrs Bydrenbaugh and she saw the question in my eyes. ‘The trick of some child or other,’ she said. ‘I’m always finding things scribbled on the walls by the children of previous generations. Defacing property is one of the more irritating habits of children. I had to smack it out of Violet when she was little.’

  She indicated a hessian bag in the corner. ‘I had Peter bag up the bones they found. That’s what frightened the men. A few old bones in here and they started baying that some woman had been locked up. I know most of them can’t read but you’d swear they had been raised on a diet of Ann Radcliffe, or some other penny dreadful.’

  I glanced at Peter. He looked how I felt, glancing around uneasily.

  ‘Should the bones not be examined by the police?’ I found my voice. ‘How do you know it was an animal that died? A crime may have been committed here.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Birdie, I thought you would have more sense!’ Mrs Bydrenbaugh exclaimed. ‘You are referring to my ancestors. Keep a respectful tongue, girl! There was no crime. You’ll be following the men down the road to the hotel next. Keep your imagination for your art.’

  I struggled to remain calm but I just wanted to leave. The room felt contaminated. Perhaps it was the stale air that was affecting me, I told myself, wanting to believe there was a logical reason for the dread creeping through my veins. But it was as if this was a spot where great unhappiness and evil had thrived and by opening the door we had somehow unleashed it onto the world.

  The room should never have been unlocked. The workmen had opened Pandora’s box and released all that should have remained imprisoned within. I only wish Mrs Bydrenbaugh had never shown me the hidden alcove in the chapel. It haunts me still.

  If a whisper from the past can destroy lives, then we were all struck that day by fate’s bloody arrow.

  Christmas Eve

  On Christmas Eve I was invited to Poet’s Cottage for supper. When I showed Mother the invitation s
he was unusually silent. I expected an outburst about ‘that dreadful woman’ but she merely pursed her lips.

  There were more people than usual in High Street as I hurried along. Many of the familiar faces looked strained. The stench from the recently stranded whales seemed to cling to the town. Some old-timers claimed it was a sign; that the rumblings we had heard from Europe about Jewish people being persecuted and forced out of their trades would result in war. Others jeered at the idea – Europe seemed to be on the other side of the moon. Despite the local paper’s optimism about shipping between Tasmania and the mainland increasing, lamb exports being up and the pride we all felt that Joe Lyons, virtually a local boy, was prime minister, life remained a daily struggle for most of us.

  Hobart might be bragging of its first trolley bus and new bank but in Pencubitt we were caught up with Polly Jones’s hundredth-birthday celebrations. That much-loved old lady, who looked at least twenty years younger – like all the old ones she attributed this to the Pencubitt air – had a big birthday party at Blackness House and people flocked to the town to toast her health. There was even an article in the Hobart Mercury about the little Tasmanian town with the purest air on the planet, where old men of ninety flew kites on the beach and women nearing one hundred ran alongside them! The local physician, Dr Nettles, speaking to the paper, said there wasn’t enough work for him in Pencubitt as the town was too healthy – the winds that blew in from Antarctica were blowing all the germs out to sea! He always did have a mischievous sense of humour.

  And in High Street was an increasingly common sight – tramps. Men fallen upon hard times, forced to travel from town to town begging for money and food. It was impossible to give to them all, but I managed to find a few coins to place in a couple of the men’s bowls as I walked by, and was rewarded with grateful thanks and season’s greetings from these unfortunate gentlemen.