The old woman snatched her arm away. ‘Just don’t think I’m going to do this every year!’ she snapped.
Betty stepped closer to Thomasina. She looked young and beautiful and Sadie felt that wherever Marguerite was at that moment, she would have been proud of her granddaughter.
‘A benediction to Nannabella M,’ Betty read from her notebook. ‘We cherish and give thanks for her life which has blessed us all. Life moves forward; it is an eternal circle. And so let us depart this special place today in gratitude and look to the light of daybreak, as we know that from the darkness, the sun does rise.
‘Life gives life and life takes away. Birth and death are eternally linked. The truth of Poet’s Cottage has set us free and our love for our ancestors leads us out of the darkness into the light. I bid the shadows now depart.’
‘Look!’ Birdie sang out, and she pointed at the sky. Two magnificent sea eagles flew steadily towards them. Just as it seemed they were about to fly straight at the small group of women, they soared upwards, wings beating the air.
‘Yahoo!’ Thomasina screeched, whipping off her scarf to wave it in excitement. The women looked at each other, smiling, with tears in their eyes, then spontaneously began to clap. Violet stood quietly, her keen eyes following the birds’ flight until they were tiny specks, then lost to view.
The small band of women stood as one, watching daylight break over the ocean. Sadie sensed that Marguerite and Pearl were indeed close to them at that moment and she felt a new acceptance and strength. She remembered the night Marguerite had died. Her mother had appeared to be rallying against the cancer; she had even regained some of the weight she had lost. Sadie had hoped the stronger chemotherapy the specialist was trialling on Marguerite was working.
Kissing her goodnight at the hospital, Sadie had left her sitting up with a well-read copy of Jane Eyre by her bedside. In a bud vase was a solitary pink rose. After picking up an Indian takeaway Sadie and Betty had driven home to their inner-city terrace. Sadie had fallen into an exhausted sleep but was woken at four am by her mother’s voice. ‘Sadie!’
Marguerite had stood by the foot of the bed, smiling tenderly at her daughter and then fading quickly away. Trembling, Sadie had rushed to phone the hospital and ask the night staff to check on her mother. She already knew what they would find.
When she told Jack and Betty about her visitation, Jack thought she’d gone mad, while Betty googled how common it was for relatives to see recently deceased loved ones. I know I saw you, Mum, she thought. I know you are near.
She knew she could now let go of her mother and the past. Sadie had lost her desire to unearth the secrets of the past; she could allow her mother and grandmother to rest.
The waves slapped the beach as they had done in Pencubitt since time began, and the birds started up their morning song. Lights began flickering in cottages along the shoreline. Children woke to cry with joy and excitement at presents to be unwrapped. Pencubitt was rising to this ancient celebration of birth, hope and new life. Dawn was breaking on Christmas Day.
Epilogue
It was night. The stars were tiny, brilliant chips of light in the sky. A gentle rain had fallen earlier, lacing the garden in delicate drops. Now all was still. A swollen moon had risen over Poet’s Cottage. It bathed the white stones of the cottage and the garden behind, casting unearthly shadows.
The house was ever present, always awake. It was aware that upstairs Sadie and her daughter slept dreamlessly, worn out by the emotional day. In the garden cottage, Thomasina was lying awake, staring into space, making stories of shadows. The house alone knew how to comfort and console her.
Poet’s Cottage knew no memory or future, for all time was one. Doors would slam and the sun would rise. Some days it heard Pearl’s laughter and the sound of her typewriter and gramophone; other days the builders, chatting away to each other long ago as they laid the first stones. Seasons were a blur of wind, snow, fog, sunshine. Children were born, lived and died, now old, in a kaleidoscopic whirl. There was pleasure, feasting, grief and blood.
Tourists photographed the house overlooking the sea and cemetery. People walked past as if in a dream, and pointed to its facade.
‘A murder happened there in the 1930s,’ they would say to each other. ‘It’s a haunted house.’
‘That’s Poet’s Cottage, where a famous children’s writer lived.’
‘That’s Poet’s Cottage. Poets have always lived there.’
Spiders and snakes crept through the garden. A possum scurried beneath the statues of the Bindi-eye Men.
The first spade hit the dirt where the foundations for the cottage would be laid. A timid and reserved man who loved his wife and children – a man who would be remembered for his genius – studied his plans, giving shape to the house of his dreams for his family.
Convicts gathered there at night, ready to be smuggled to safety. Walnut, verbena and magnolia trees were planted; they grew, bloomed, shed their leaves, and blossomed again.
And a man with a fixed smile walked through a thick heavy fog as silently as a ghost’s memory. His sister, Jean, shivered as she waited at the train station, laughing to herself at the accuracy of her prophecy for the death of a certain dark-haired toff beauty. Her words draped forever over the brickwork of Poet’s Cottage like a deadly climber rose threatening to strangle the house: My angels are never wrong . . . The guilty one with stained hands is near you. Beware!
Standing in front of the house, Pearl Tatlow smoked a cigarette. The smoke circled around Sadie’s head, who stood near her. Both women looked around, sensing a shadow, but neither saw the other.
For now the house was at peace as it slumbered with its ghosts. Poet’s Cottage was between the worlds and time. The living and the dead shared the same rooms and neither recognised the other. The house could bend and shape to accommodate them all, for the house knew they were but shadows.
A thousand prayers, wishes, dreams, broken bones, lost teeth and broken hearts. The cottage held them all tenderly. Its secrets grew like ivy, knitting together dreams and flesh.
Night.
Peace.
Home.
Author’s note
Dear Reader,
In 2007, on a family holiday to the picturesque fishing village of Stanley on the north-west coast of Tasmania, I first saw the white Georgian-style cottage by the sea that ignited the spark that became Poet’s Cottage. Tasmania, with its wild gothic splendour and dramatic history, has of course provided plenty of inspiration for all sorts of writers from Carmel Bird and Chloe Hooper to Nicholas Shakespeare.
I am a very proud fifth-generation Tasmanian and often feel homesick for my home state. My husband has become accustomed to me falling in love with houses on all our trips. This house was different, however, as I felt it had a story to tell me. I would stand outside the gates, watch the moon rise over the chimneypots and close my eyes, trying to hear the story and secrets I felt sure the house contained.
Chatting with a friendly local in the street, I mentioned my attraction to the house and he beamed, ‘That’s Poet’s Cottage, and I’m the poet who used to live there!’ That man was Lin Eldridge and he introduced me to his wife, Marguerite Eldridge, when he discovered I was a writer. I had no idea at the time that Marguerite was a well-known personality in Tasmania. In January 2011 Marguerite was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for her service to the community and arts.
Marguerite, who records her life in Stanley in her bestselling self-published books, was a goldmine of information on life in a small town. She lives in Gull Cottage as my Birdie Pinkerton lives in Seagull Cottage. Both women are amazingly youthful for their age, creative and love their little towns, but there the resemblance ends. Birdie is a fictional being, as are the other characters in my story.
I began to make notes on that holiday. Stanley is perfect for a writer’s imagination with its juxtaposition of gothic, wild sea coast and Enid Blyton–style Cornish fishing-village charm. I had long b
een fascinated by the opposing views that Enid Blyton’s daughters Imogen and Gillian had of their mother. I also grew up devouring the works of Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier – both long-time favourite authors. The TV series Midsomer Murders, with its strange coupling of murder most cosy against drop-dead pretty English villages was also an influence. I had been toying with the idea of creating an English-style mystery, but with an Australian setting. On that family holiday all those elements came together. I still have my journal from that trip with some of the early lines of the book scribbled inside it. Poets have always lived here, the local people said. It was as if the house called to its own. And we were even treated to a blissfully heavy fog. ‘A rare occasion to have a fog that thick,’ a local told me, which helped to form part of the atmosphere and plot twists on the day of the murder of Pearl Tatlow.
Having returned to our tiny cottage in inner-city Sydney with the planes flying overhead and the heavy traffic, I began the next three years of escaping to my imaginary town of Pencubitt in Tasmania in my garden courtyard writing shed.
There are two houses in Poet’s Cottage. Blackness House was in part inspired by historic Highfield House in Stanley, with its tragic history of Juliana Curr, the three-year-old daughter of Edward Curr, the manager of the Van Diemen’s Land Co. The little girl was riding in a cart drawn by her pet dog when the dog was spooked and ran off, killing the child in its panic. The sense of loss and grief is tangible at Highfield, particularly in Juliana’s mother’s bedroom, where a weeping room has been set up.
I took the name Hellyer for my architect from the Tasmanian explorer Henry Hellyer. Hellyer and Tatlow are two surnames you stumble across in the very gothic-looking, spectacular sea-vista cemetery at Stanley. Of course, this graveyard had to make an appearance in the book.
Though it is entirely from my imagination, Pencubitt has a few traces of Stanley in it and is also reminiscent of Oatlands, a tiny historic Georgian village in the midlands of Tasmania where I was raised and where generations of Pennicotts have settled. Oatlands does have a shepherdess who sleeps in the outdoors with her sheep. There was another elderly lady in the town who I used to visit as a child, an inspiration for some of the qualities in the character of Birdie. Like Marguerite, she loved to record life in her small village and delighted in the creative arts.
Throughout the years it took to write this book, I used a wide variety of books for research material. The ones I tended to favour are listed below. Mostly they are books by ‘ordinary Australians’ who wrote their life stories. The majority of the books I used are now out of print, sourced from second-hand dealers or online. This is why I appreciate people like Marguerite Eldridge so much – because they are the culture carriers of their towns and you get to experience so much of the day-to-day life from their perspective.
Stories of Stanley, Tasmania by Marguerite Eldridge (Harris Print, Burnie, Tasmania)
A Suburban Girl: Australia 1918–1948 by Moira Lambert (Macmillan, Australia)
The Trees Were Green: Memories of Growing Up After the Great War by Mary Drake (Hale & Iremonger, Australia)
Twenties Child: A Childhood Recollection by V. Arney (Collins Dove, Melbourne)
Good Talk: The Extraordinary Lives of Ten Ordinary Australian Women, edited by Rhonda Wilson (McPhee Gribble/Penguin, Australia)
Wild Girls by Diana Souhami (Orion)
The Rare and the Beautiful: The Lives of the Garmans by Cressida Connolly (Harper Perennial)
For the last five years my beloved father has been battling aggressive cancer. As he became weaker, it was impossible to get all the stories of his childhood memories from him. My father died on 4 November 2011, just as I was checking final proofs for Poet’s Cottage. He died at four am with my mother and myself at his side. Although he never saw the finished book, he did share in much of its creation and was very proud. He left a profound legacy in the hearts and memories of all who knew and loved him. Throughout the years I wrote this book, I came to realise that for me, Poet’s Cottage was not just another romantic, historic house I had fallen in love with – but a dwelling where my ancestors resided and called. A house between the worlds of secrets, lies, great love, bones, dreams and whispers from previous generations. It was a love letter to family and Tasmania.
It has been a great joy to visit my home state from my writing shed in Sydney over the years. I have grown up with a love and longing for stone cottages, chimney smoke, dry stone walls, Tasmanian gardens, wild desolate coastlines, heather, hidden caves and of course all the intrigues and scandals of small towns. I hope you, the reader, enjoy Poet’s Cottage as much as I loved creating it. And in the best of mystery traditions, please don’t reveal the ending to others!
Josephine Pennicott
Sydney, 2012
Acknowledgements
Poet’s Cottage has been fortunate to have many people who have believed, nurtured and cared for it in all its forms. My warmest and sincere gratitude goes to the following:
Selwa Anthony, my agent of the last twelve years, who offered valuable advice when she read early chapters. Thank you, Selwa, for your passion for Australian authors and stories, your continued loyalty to this particular author and your wise counsel.
The dynamic and professional team at Pan Macmillan – Cate Paterson, Publishing Director; Alex Nahlous, Commissioning Fiction Editor; Brianne Collins, Senior Editor; and Clara Finlay, whose methodical and impressive editing skills kept me on my toes throughout several successive editing drafts. I would also like to thank Jace Armstrong for being such an enterprising and bolstering publicist. It has been a privilege and joy to work alongside you all and experience your warmth and caring for both me and this book.
The talented cover designer, Nada Backovic, who translated my words into such a stunning cover image.
The marketing and sales people, for all your efforts on behalf of Poet’s Cottage.
Bolinda Audio Publishing for transforming Poet’s Cottage into audio.
Belinda Alexandra, for providing me with the cover quote. It’s a joy, Belinda, to have your luminous energy around Poet’s Cottage.
Marguerite and Lin Eldridge of Stanley, Tasmania, for providing me with the title Poet’s Cottage, and for Marguerite’s book Stories of Stanley, Tasmania – invaluable when planning Pencubitt. Also Christine Medwin from The Captain’s Cottage of Stanley, who provided gracious hospitality to my family over several writing trips to the town.
Mo Hayder, Selena Hanet-Hutchins and Trac Williams – all of whom gave necessary inspiration and immense kindness at the pivotal time of my writing career.
My husband, David Levell, to whom I owe lifetimes of gratitude for his love, support, motivation and for giving up so much of his own precious writing time to read early drafts, assist with editing and for his suggestions on characters and plot. I couldn’t share a writing shed with a better companion, David.
Ian and Barbara Pennicott. From my father I inherited my love of words: your belief in my writing has never altered over the years. No daughter could be more blessed with such courageous and giving parents. Also Anne and George Levell for their continued support.
My girlfriends, who continue to love and seek me out even when I disappear for long periods at a time into the writing shed, or when I seem abstracted when the characters are calling me. Thank you for your friendship: I value you all.
The glam book-lovers of The Magic Hat Bookclub for all the soul-food conversation. And Better Read than Dead in Newtown for hosting the Hatters. And to booksellers everywhere for providing that most magical of spaces to spend time in – a bookshop.
The people around the world who comment on and follow my blog Tale Peddler.
My deep thanks to YOU, the reader, for choosing this book and for trusting me to tell you a story.
And finally, to Daisy, who, with her innocence and sparkle has given my life unimagined depth. May you find your own path in life, my daughter – and as you travel it, may the strength of our ancestors be
ever with you. Daisy: my heart, my home.
Josephine Pennicott is an award-winning writer in the crime genre. Her story Birthing the Demons won the 2001 Scarlet Stiletto, and she has won the Kerry Greenwood Domestic Malice Prize twice, with Hail Mary (2003) and Tadpole (2004).
Josephine’s first three novels were in the dark fantasy genre: Circle of Nine, Bride of the Stone and A Fire in the Shell. Circle of Nine was named as one of 2001’s best debut novels in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow, editors).
Born in Tasmania, Josephine’s early years were spent in Papua New Guinea. She has worked in a range of jobs (including nurse, housemaid, life-drawing model and sales assistant) and has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales.
Josephine lives in Sydney, Australia, with her writer partner David Levell and their daughter Daisy.
First published 2012 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Josephine Pennicott 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Pennicott, Josephine.
Poet’s Cottage / Josephine Pennicott.
Adobe eReader format: 9781743345528
EPUB format: 9781743345535
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