The House of Whispers

by Laura Purcell

  And at that, he got up and left her.

  Part 5

  Potent Liquids

  Chapter 26

  We must set off early to make our way into ‘town’. Dawn trembles upon the horizon. The moon is still at large, refusing to be cowed. No clouds obscure its milky glow. It seems set to be a bright day.

  Our pony is eager to be on the move. He paws the grass, breath pluming from his nostrils. Although his winter coat has grown thick on his rump, he clearly still feels the cold. One would need to be made of stone to ignore it. I am exceedingly lucky that Merryn has lent me her cloak.

  Three people just about fit on the trap. The backwards seat, where I put my trunk on the journey down, will serve us for any packages we bring home. Gerren initially places himself in the middle, but Mrs Quinn is much larger, so he ends up pushed towards the right-hand side with me anyway. Even in the fresh, salty air, I can smell the tobacco on his coat. This morning, I do not mind. I am grateful for his warmth.

  Gerren loosens the reins and the pony springs to life. The wheels wobble. I remember the winding road up the cliff and gulp.

  Behind us, Morvoren House is shuttered and sightless. I gaze over my shoulder, keeping it in view until we sink downhill, deep into the darkness. Miss Pinecroft will still be there, in the china room. I hope Merryn will be kind to her in my absence, help her to drink her morning chocolate.

  I have more potent liquids to pursue.

  We do not take the Falmouth road. I am glad, for that would be an arduous journey. It crosses my mind to ask our destination, but the name of the town would mean nothing to me.

  As we travel inland, a pink pearly light begins to wash up the sky and a very different Cornwall materialises before my eyes. Here there are no raw cliffs or craggy rocks, only hills sliding from green to gold. Hedgerows and stone walls tease the eye in every direction. Far away, the flues of tin and copper mines pierce the horizon.

  This land is fertile; there are a great quantity of trees. Some have twisted to odd shapes in the wind, all of them are bare, and yet they give me the impression life is slumbering, just waiting to erupt.

  The sound of the sea fades. I can still smell and taste the salt, but I no longer feel it shredding my cheeks. Sir Arthur’s acquaintances would call such a landscape picturesque. They would marvel over its untamed romance. I prefer the formal gardens of London with their straight lines and patterns. What I would not give now to see a fountain or a trained and pruned privet hedge. Everything neatly controlled.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Mrs Quinn announces, making me jump.

  From a distance, I see a hotchpotch of whitewashed houses surrounding a bay. Narrow streets twist uphill to more buildings, some of them roughcast like Morvoren House but much smaller. I push back the hood of Merryn’s cloak. It does not appear so much a town as a large fishing village.

  Entering the bustle of streets feels strange after my three days on the clifftop. Descending a steep lane, we pass a rope maker and a chair mender to stop outside an inn. Its walls are embroidered with the remains of ivy.

  My spirits lift.

  Mrs Quinn is already making her way down from the trap with a basket hooked over her arm, eager to be about her business. Gerren points to the stone church tower, close by the water.

  ‘Back by two bells,’ he says.

  Together, Mrs Quinn and I make our way over the cobbles. A man drives sheep in the opposite direction. This is a busy village, a boat-making village, the housekeeper informs me. There are certainly signs of small industry: women mending nets, children dashing about with pails. Boats bob at anchor in the bay.

  ‘Walk with me to save growing lost,’ she offers. ‘I’ll show you about, but first I’ve to visit the bank for the mistress, and Mrs Bawden has a fancy—’

  ‘Please, do not trouble yourself. I have an excellent sense of direction.’ Seeing her mouth droop, I add hastily, ‘I should only get in your way. I do so hate to make a nuisance of myself.’

  Mrs Quinn hesitates. ‘ ’Tis your choice. Only wait outside the church when you’re done, and I’ll meet you there.’ She hands me a small purse of coins and cups my fingers tight around them. ‘Be careful. I shouldn’t like you to fall in the way of any rough folk.’

  I nod, as if she is very wise. ‘I shall be cautious. Living in London certainly taught me that.’

  Living in London has also taught me to appreciate this view of the sky: a great bowl overhead, clouds draped across it like lace on blue silk. I do not remember ever seeing so much of it.

  I wander at random. A woman bundled up in a threadbare shawl eyes me warily. The butcher’s boy stops to watch my progress, a parcel of bloody meat dripping in his hands. I raise the hood of Merryn’s cloak over my face again. I daresay I appear strange to these people. Dressed simply though I am, my gown is a world apart from their mud-splattered boots and darned clothes. These people have known hard times. The wars have been kind to no one, and our Regent is not famed for his consideration of the lower classes. I see the cracks cut into their hands by salt, and remember reading of bread riots in Truro. Circumstances have improved, but not greatly.

  For me, it is quaint to wind through this little village, up and downhill as the erratic cobbles dictate. Whether it is the freedom from Morvoren House, the bright day or the prospect of gin that charms me, I am certainly happier than I have been for a long while.

  I locate an apothecary without much trouble. His premises are small and grimed with dirt at the windows. There is a seedy appearance to him. The bottles are dusty about the shoulders, the weighing scales tarnished. He sells a variety of quack nostrums, the Venice turpentine and syrup of maidenhair I need, and he can even supply my gin from under the counter. Once, I would despise such a man. Hester Why thinks him a capital fellow.

  Uncorking the gin bottle with my teeth, I press it against my lips. I have spent laudanum-weary nights dreaming of this moment, but the reality is better.

  I find a fence to lean against and watch a small boy selling packets of newspapers. He struggles to keep them from taking off in the breeze. It seems fitting that he is here. A newspaper started me drinking, after all. That advertisement, still hidden in my trunk. God knows why I have kept it. To feel wanted, perhaps, sought after.

  I take another sip of gin.

  It is unbearable to imagine Lady Rose out there in the world, despising me. But even worse is the possibility that she does not think of me at all.

  In the distance, a church clock chimes. My time is running out. I decant the bottle I am holding into my empty hip flask; the other I wrap carefully in an extra shawl and place at the bottom of my basket. I need to cushion it as thoroughly as it cushions me. Mrs Quinn must not hear the telltale chink.

  I nearly make it: go straight to the church and meet Mrs Quinn. But as I pass the boy, my footsteps slow. He pushes the salt-matted hair from his eyes and looks up at me with a world of hope.

  Somehow my hand is already in my pocket. I have just enough left after buying the gin. Sick with anticipation, I press the coins into his print-stained palm.

  The packet tears in the wind and the foolishly large pages beat frantically like the wings of a netted gull. I consider crumpling the newspaper into my basket and taking it up again once we are home. But that is a trial of patience my nerves will not stand.

  I reach the society pages first. My eyes scan the print eagerly for news of her. A certain duchess has been seen sporting a new hat . . . One of the Prince Regent’s outriders lost his way in the fog and fell into a ditch . . . There will be a musical gathering in the Queen’s Concert Rooms . . .

  And then comes the sensation of falling.

  It is worse than that day in Salisbury. So much worse.

  The boy swims at the edge of my vision. ‘Miss?’

  I have just enough time to set my basket down upon the cobbled pavement. Then the world turns m
ercifully black.

  Chapter 27

  They have all been exceedingly kind. That has only made it harder to bear. When Mrs Quinn clucked over me and wrapped her shawl about my shoulders for the journey home, I wanted to scream at her. Does she not understand that I deserve no tenderness? Does she not see the rot at my very core?

  My hands shake worse than ever, and it has nothing to do with gin. Much as I try to hide my emotions, Merryn knows something is awry. I see it in her sideways glances as I mix the chocolate like an automaton.

  ‘If thee an’t well enough to work . . .’ she begins.

  ‘I am quite recovered, thank you.’

  ‘Mrs Quinn says thee went down hard yesterday . . .’

  ‘I had simply not eaten enough,’ I snap.

  Performing my duties is torture, but I would rather have them to focus on. If I were left alone in that salt-ringed bedroom with my newspapers, my snuffbox and my memories . . . I think I would drown myself in gin. Dram by dram.

  I pour the chocolate into a cup that has two handles and a lid to keep it warm.

  Merryn takes a breath, but I leave the kitchen before she can speak again.

  When I am in the west wing, halfway down the corridor leading to the china room, a familiar scent reaches me: cardamom. I stop dead, my hands shaking on the tray. I have mixed the chocolate as Lady Rose would take it, by mistake.

  It is all I can do not to break down in sobs.

  After a few minutes, I regain something like composure. I balance the tray on one unsteady hand, open the door and step inside the china room. It is like plunging into a pool of icy water.

  Never before have I felt a cold like this: sharper than any blade.

  A violent gust slams the door behind me and I scream. Dust swirls in clouds across the floor. The curtains flail and I realise what has happened: Miss Pinecroft has opened the window.

  This is too much.

  ‘Confound it!’ I cry, slamming the tray upon a side table.

  I run to close it. Damp has warped the wooden frame of the sash and it initially refuses to budge. Shoving aside the billowing curtains with one arm, I pull at the wood until my fingernails crack. At last, with a great whoosh, it gives way and slides shut.

  The wind dies. The curtains slap back into place. Outside I can see the ocean, writhing with glee, as if this were all a game.

  ‘Of what were you thinking, madam?’ I demand. ‘All the care I take of you, and you wish to undo it! For what? What reason could you possibly have?’

  I round upon my mistress.

  Miss Pinecroft’s spine is poker-straight. She clenches the arms of the chair. Her hair is blown awry and she looks terrified.

  As if she is afraid something will rip her from her seat.

  ‘Miss Pinecroft? What . . .?’

  Glancing down at her hands, my stomach turns over.

  Her wrinkled fingers have twisted themselves into the shape of birds’ talons. Her nails are broken, worse than my own.

  Gouged deep in the armrests are thin white lines. As jagged as the fissures in the jasperware cup.

  What troubles me most is the fact that I screamed when the door slammed behind me, then I harangued my mistress in a manner deserving instant dismissal: I was loud and clamorous, but no one came. No one heard me above the tossing of the sea.

  It occurs to me that if Miss Pinecroft should fall while I was out of the room, I would not hear her either. I would be too late to help.

  And I must help her. Even if I achieve no other good. The thought steadies me. If I can be of use to this poor lady, who can barely hold her chocolate in her freshly bandaged hands, it will be my atonement.

  I wish she would tell me what haunts her. Through a gap in the curtains, I glimpse steel-grey waves. Until now, I did not think there could be enmity in the sea, but it is there. Taunting my mistress.

  Footsteps thud in the corridor and the door swings open, making us both jump. It is Rosewyn. Alone.

  She offers a shy grin before toddling inside. The way she moves, her facial expressions: all are exactly as a child. She does not seem to belong in her body.

  When she reaches the side of the wingchair, Rosewyn throws her arms around the old lady’s neck.

  There is a moment of tension; Miss Pinecroft’s eyes bulge, her fingers grasp the armrests once more. I try to imagine her adopting Rosewyn when she really was a child – somewhere near forty years ago. Was Miss Pinecroft softer back then? Indulgent to the small, unfortunate girl? I think she must have been, for Rosewyn’s affection is evident. She truly loves her.

  ‘Good day!’ Rosewyn kisses the papery cheek and seats herself on the floor.

  ‘Hello, Miss Rosewyn,’ I say. ‘What brings you downstairs?’

  Before she can answer, a heavy tread sounds by the door. Creeda stalks towards us, carrying the doll.

  Rosewyn hunches her shoulders.

  ‘You’re not to go running off. Haven’t I told you a hundred times?’ Creeda’s voice is sand-rough.

  I clear my throat officiously. ‘You needn’t be alarmed if Miss Rosewyn decides to visit her guardian. She is quite safe down here with us.’

  Creeda cocks an eyebrow above her brown eye. ‘She is, is she?’

  ‘Allow me to light the fire. I would not want Miss Rosewyn catching a chill.’

  Both the elder women move, but it is Creeda’s hand that nips my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t,’ she decrees. ‘Heat harms the porcelain.’

  This woman. She irritates me like an itch at the back of the throat. She reminds me of Burns – but that maid was spiteful, openly malignant. Creeda speaks with none of her passion. It is her very coolness, her self-possession, that grates upon me. ‘Nonsense! I never heard of such a thing. Why . . . is not porcelain fired in a kiln, when it is made?’

  She stares straight at me with those uncanny eyes. ‘Don’t presume to tell me. My family made this collection.’

  I was not expecting that.

  ‘Nancarrow Bone China,’ I whisper.

  She nods. ‘Yes. Nancarrow was my maiden name. I got everything when the factory closed down.’

  It is on the tip of my tongue to mention the error on the Willow pattern transfer, but I forbear and resume my seat.

  ‘I did not know you had been married, Creeda.’

  ‘I am married still,’ she barks.

  What man on earth would have the courage? I am about to make enquiries when I realise: Gerren. The band on her gnarly finger matches his.

  What a pairing! I would be amused, were I less miserable. Creeda is the spider in the centre of a web, connected to everything. Even Miss Pinecroft follows her commands. Who, really, is the mistress of Morvoren House?

  Outside, waves collapse into the embrace of the sea. Creeda proffers the doll to Rosewyn, who sulkily accepts it and places it in her lap.

  ‘Come on. Stand up, let’s be out of here.’

  Rosewyn turns her doll over and begins to plait its hair.

  ‘Rosewyn.’

  ‘Perhaps you might adjust Miss Rosewyn’s clothes, if you are taking her back upstairs,’ I tell Creeda. ‘They are inside out. It is not fitting for a lady to appear so, even before her family.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it’s right for this child. Her gown must be that way.’

  I had thought it a failure in the old woman’s eyes; that they might be weak, as Miss Pinecroft’s are. Can she really be doing this to Rosewyn on purpose?

  Rosewyn glances up, smiles and returns to her doll.

  She is natural – innocent. Fertile ground for any strange ideas this maid should choose to plant inside her head. It strikes me now that she is nothing but a doll herself, dressed and positioned to please Creeda.

  What sins might she push this unwitting soul towards? Was it Creeda who urged her to rip apart the Bible?<
br />
  Miss Pinecroft cannot defend her ward, but I can. I should.

  ‘I am not from Cornwall, Creeda. Perhaps you might explain to me what possible virtue your people see in wearing their clothes the wrong way around?’

  She considers me. Her hooked nose juts further forward than ever. ‘I don’t know, Miss Why, if you ever heard of people being pixy-led.’

  ‘No, that is not a term I am familiar with.’

  I imagine she is about to spin me a similar tale to the one Lowena recited at dinner on Saturday: floating lights, hidden bogs. As if the most dangerous hazard here were not the great clifftop, yawning where all can see it.

  Creeda glances at the china. ‘They . . . want. Always more.’

  ‘Who?’ I ask, incredulous.

  She deliberately misunderstands. ‘Our people. We keep their race alive. They can’t breed, you see. So they take us.’

  Father told me once of the lunatics in Bedlam and their hideous fantasies. I never thought to see one in the flesh.

  ‘Of course they’re clever about it,’ she continues. ‘They know, by now, what moves us. I never hear of children tempted by succulent apples these days. It’s deeper than that. They call out for help. They shout in the voices of our loved ones who have died.’

  Miss Pinecroft tightens her grip on the armrest.

  I cannot reply to this madness.

  ‘Once they take you underground, you belong to them. But some people have turned back, before it was too late. They broke the charm by flipping their clothes inside out. So I protect my charge. I make sure Miss Rosewyn is guarded against them at all times.’

  On the floor, Rosewyn finishes her plait and hugs the doll to her chest. It is the first time I have seen her show it tenderness, but she does not appear to be clinging to it with love: she holds on as one who is afraid.

  ‘Fairies, you mean?’ I scoff. ‘Imaginary creatures, waiting to take us underground? Bosh! This is nothing more than folklore! It is no excuse to dress poor Miss Rosewyn in such a whimsical manner. Why, if it is so dangerous, do you not all have your clothes on inside out? Why do you suppose they would want only her?’