The House of Whispers

by Laura Purcell

  ‘Smashed the dam,’ he went on. ‘When the tide come in, happen it’ll look like an accident.’

  ‘It’s only the doctor they’ll mind.’

  ‘Rock might’ve hit un,’ he suggested. ‘Swept by a wave and . . . bam!’

  She flinched.

  ‘They shouldn’t ask too many questions,’ Creeda assured him. ‘It’s no wonder to have a group of consumptives die. It’s only the doctor’s head we’ll need to explain, and he was living in a cave full of convicts. If the coroner won’t believe an accident . . . Well, it won’t take much to persuade him one of them criminals hit our master.’

  Once, Louise would have told her that the coroners were not medically trained. That even if they suspected murder, it would take a rich and interested party to pay before they sought prosecution. But her worldly knowledge no longer seemed important. It felt like a story she had read long ago.

  ‘Loss of blood, were it?’ Gerren asked softly.

  ‘Think so. Who can know? It wasn’t human, Gerren. At the end there . . . that was a fairy.’

  The idea did not seem so very unlikely to Louise now. There was certainly something, peopling the silence; she could feel it, as surely as she had felt death prowling around the men.

  ‘Their bodies.’ She sounded listless, unlike herself. ‘What will you do with the bodies?’

  A hand stroked her arm. ‘Hush, now.’

  ‘The money it would cost to bury them all . . .’

  ‘There’s more than one way to dispose of bones, miss. I know just what to do.’

  Of course she did. Creeda knew. She knew all the things Louise did not.

  ‘He is dead, then. My . . .’ She trailed off. She had not noticed before that this room resembled the cave, when the light was shut out. Dark brown walls pressing close. The gloom and the chill. She had loathed that cave, but now it made her feel better. It reminded her of being with Harry.

  ‘Miss, it wasn’t your father,’ Creeda insisted. An edge of panic crept into her voice. ‘Don’t you see? They got the men and then they came after you. They wanted you and me.’

  Louise exhaled. Even that was an effort. She wanted to see them, to see the fairies dancing. The pretty, dainty fairies she had read of as a child. Not cruel and savage like that man on the beach.

  ‘Has my father been taken by the fairies, Creeda?’

  ‘Yes, miss. I’m afraid he has.’

  Her ribs seemed to scrape against her heart. ‘And I’ll never see him again.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Creeda took a breath. ‘I don’t know about that. Maybe you will. I came back, didn’t I? One of them brought me back.’

  Back from under the ground. Could it happen? She did not see why not. Everything else Creeda had said had come to pass.

  ‘You could . . . stay here,’ Creeda went on, tremulous. ‘In this house, close to the cave. Just in case. But you’d need me here. To protect you from them.’

  She could not imagine parting with the girl now. Could not imagine a future at all. Vague images of chains and straw flickered in her mind. That was right. Creeda had been threatened with incarceration in the madhouse.

  She thought of medicine and it was like mourning for a lost love. A sweetheart whose true colours gave only disillusionment. Mama, Kitty, Francis, Harry, Papa . . . physic had not saved a single one of them. It had left her with nothing, not even faith in the science that had once been her passion.

  ‘Will your father not come to fetch you away from here?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘Not if you write,’ Creeda pleaded. ‘Not if you tell him you’re a nurse, and you’ll care for me now the doctor’s gone. He’s got plenty of money, he’ll keep paying for me . . .’

  Louise sighed. ‘I will write whatever you wish. Sign whatever you want me to.’

  ‘We’ll look after each other, miss. We’ll wait for them to be returned. What do you say?’

  She could believe that Harry was gone forever, his life a pointless waste; that her beloved father, driven mad with grief and illness, had committed the gravest of sins; and that she had murdered both. There was no heaven, no forgiveness, for any of them.

  Or there was Creeda’s way. She could believe they were coming back. Stare deep into the china and picture two men blinking, stumbling into the light and the welcome spray of the waves.

  ‘I will wait,’ she said. ‘I will wait as long as it takes.’

  Part 7

  Pixy-Led

  Chapter 39

  I did not believe Miss Pinecroft when she said it was too dangerous for me to spend a night in the china room. Now that morning has come, I wish I had listened to her.

  I retch into Miss Pinecroft’s chamber pot again and again.

  A spell. It must be a spell.

  Creeda has done this to me.

  The muscles of my stomach heave, beyond my control. How they burn. Either side of the chamber pot, my hands appear soft and bloated. I drive my fingernails into the floorboards as an anchor.

  Every spell requires a lock of hair. That was why I found Miss Pinecroft’s brush picked clean. The crone must be controlling my mistress, somehow, causing harm in subtle and insidious ways through the power of hair.

  And now she has mine.

  ‘Hester?’ It is Miss Pinecroft. Through watery eyes I peer at her; the lady and her chair are nothing more than a blur to me.

  I cannot answer her.

  Dawn dribbles beneath the curtains, pale as death. It grazes my hands but does not light the china room. Nothing, it seems, can illuminate this infernal chamber and its paganism.

  I close my eyes and focus on breathing.

  The tide draws breath with me, lapping in and out.

  Gradually, my insides cease their bubbling. My belly settles. Exhausted and giddy with relief, I fall back onto my haunches.

  Floorboards bump upstairs. I hear clattering down the corridor and realise it must be Merryn, going to wake the kitchen from its slumber.

  Should I tell Merryn?

  Once, I might have done so. But if my behaviour has not already convinced her I am soft in the head, this story will do it. I can picture myself streaking into the kitchen, dishevelled and gaunt, rambling about Creeda cutting my hair for witchcraft.

  Can she be a witch? Both Merryn and Lowena mock her, yet no harm has befallen them. I recall my own brew, mixed in the cold white-tile kitchen of Hanover Square. There was no dark magic involved there. The fault was entirely human.

  Scrabbling to my feet, I lurch towards the door.

  Miss Pinecroft releases her breath.

  The corridor rocks. With every step, the floor tilts in a different direction, but somehow I manage to stagger on, through the white haze of the stucco hall and beyond.

  Heat reaches out and takes me by the hand, leading me to the kitchen where the fire spits.

  ‘Merryn.’

  She jumps as I haul myself into the room. How young she looks. I realise now that Merryn does not hate me for my previous outburst: she is frightened of me.

  She shrinks close to the wall, no informant ready to run to the magistrate; just a poor girl who does not want to be shouted at.

  ‘I need water. Hot water.’

  She nods, mute.

  Leaning against the doorframe for support, I watch her work, aware of the unsightly birthmark upon her cheek. Is that why she was hired here? Because she is a girl the fairies would not wish to take?

  No, that cannot be. Mrs Quinn hires the staff, not Creeda. Although she told me with her own lips that Creeda read my reference letters . . . Creeda needed to approve of me cleaning the china.

  How far does the clawed hand of that woman reach?

  The water heater hisses.

  I thought I had run here to save my own skin, but perhaps there is a higher purpose behind my arrival. Only a pers
on like me can spot Creeda’s tricks, stop her. Maybe this is how I will make amends.

  The pail Merryn warily places on the floor is scalding hot, but I do not wait for it to cool. Seizing the handle, I totter back the way I have come.

  Since the moment I arrived eleven days ago, I have heard nothing but entreaties to keep the china room cold, to wash the plates with tepid water. I will not play their games any more. We will have flames and heat and cleansing steam: I will smoke this evil out.

  Miss Pinecroft turns in her chair to see me stumble across the threshold. It is the first time she has done so.

  ‘Hester?’ she whispers.

  I think I might be sick again. Swallowing down the bile, I pull a cloth from my apron and hold it against my mouth. Nothing comes.

  ‘Hester?’

  ‘I have left it long enough. I am going to wash the china.’ I lower the cloth and plunge it into the searing water.

  Pain bites instantly, but it is satisfying, somehow reassuring, like a steadying drop of gin. Gin . . . I have not taken liquor for many hours. My body craves it, yet the thought of putting anything past my lips now . . .

  Later. There will be time for everything else later, once I have broken the hateful woman’s spell.

  Determined, I step up to the rack and remove the first plate. Nancarrow Bone China. I scrub furiously, front and back. The skull leers from the base, knowing.

  The next plate. The next. I am not taking the time to dry them but slam each back into place. Water drips like tears onto the floor. My wet thumb squeaks against the varnish.

  ‘Careful,’ Miss Pinecroft gasps.

  I hear movement, as if she is attempting to stand.

  What has Creeda hidden here? What is her secret – and why can I see nothing of it?

  Excitement and fear quake through me. Only with great difficulty do I manage to pick up another plate. This one is familiar: the Willow pattern with the missing figure.

  No.

  Two missing figures.

  Blinking, I reconsider the bridge. It is no mistake: there is the man with the staff, standing alone. Reddish brown speckles the place his bride once occupied, flecks of something dried onto the plate.

  Shakily, I pass my cloth over the spots, leaving a slick trail. Down, down, run the droplets, snaking their way from the painted bridge to the white void representing a lake.

  And there it is.

  The missing figure, the one that I looked for, is in the water. She has jumped off the bridge.

  A bead of water magnifies the head, bobbing just above the surface. Blue painted lines indicate ripples around the body as it thrashes. Little use in that now. The stones in her pockets will weigh her down: I know, for I have read the report. I have seen this so many times in my nightmares.

  I reel backwards, desperate to put space between myself and this terrible sight, but my hands have set rigid and will not release the plate.

  Look what you have done, Esther. Look what you have done.

  I stumble into something; there is a crunch like bones.

  ‘No! No!’ Miss Pinecroft cries hoarsely. ‘How could y- y—?’

  Whipping round, I see that I have dislodged one of the urns off its shelf and it has smashed. The lining, revealed at last, glows curd-white.

  There is liquid. Thick and dark, like honey. It spreads, slowly forms a viscous pool. Rosemary needles are sprinkled through, but they do nothing for the stench.

  Little wonder Miss Pinecroft did not want a fire in this room. Heating such a monstrous potion would make its stink unbearable.

  ‘What on earth is this?’

  It is not just rosemary caught in the liquid. There are nail clippings. Pins. A lock of human hair.

  I cannot help it; I retch.

  Miss Pinecroft makes no noise at all.

  It is as though lightning has struck her. She stands before the chair, one arm extended to point at the urn, but she cannot support it. Her hand droops; everything seems to droop.

  Her palsied mouth works, unable to catch words. Then it clamps shut. The blue eyes bulge.

  Without a sound, she drops.

  ‘Miss Pinecroft!’

  Now my fingers do fall slack against the plate. It smashes to the floor. I do not care. I am on all fours once more, turning my mistress over, cradling her head.

  ‘Help!’ I scream. ‘Fetch help!’

  Merryn and Lowena tear into the room together. They take one look at the mess, the china scattered like broken teeth – and they freeze.

  I see myself through their eyes: drink-deprived, retching, grovelling uselessly over the woman I swore to protect.

  ‘Help me,’ I plead.

  Merryn begins to cry.

  Chapter 40

  Once, I would have revelled in this: the hushed panic of the sickroom where I reign supreme, other servants hurrying in deference to my orders. A chance at last to use my costly palsy water. But I do not experience that gentle hum of satisfaction, deep within my bones. I feel no sense of purpose. Instead, there is something else. A tightening, a dread.

  The blue people on the walls and the bed hangings seem to crowd together, whispering. I cannot hear the drips as I once did. It is hard to hear anything above the knocking of my heart.

  Another drop of laudanum slides from the bottle and down my throat. It softens nothing. My eyes are pinned open and forced to behold the agony I have caused through my carelessness. There is no doubt in my mind: if I had not broken the urn, Miss Pinecroft would not have suffered the fit.

  She is stiff upon the bed, her lips ghost-pale. I dribble the palsy water between them: lavender and malmsey wine, herbs, the same spices I use in her drinking chocolate. It only trickles from the corners of her mouth.

  No physician will come to aid me. Gerren has set out on the indomitable pony for help, but I hold no hope of his success. Icicles hang from the window and the glass is marbled with frost. Every now and then, snow huffs through the chimney and makes the fire hiss like a cat. Gerren will be lucky if he is not lost in a drift himself.

  His wife does not seem overly concerned; at least, not for him. I hear her at the end of the corridor, admonishing Rosewyn.

  ‘Hold it tight! Tight! I am locking the door. Don’t you even think about moving.’

  There is a slam, the click of a key turning in a lock.

  Hairs stir on my arms as Creeda stalks closer. The door to Miss Pinecroft’s chamber is open wide. Weak as I am, I will not be able to protect my mistress against the witch.

  Is this what she wanted all along? Did she hex me on purpose so I would break the china? It would make a dreadful sort of sense to eliminate Miss Pinecroft and rule the house through Rosewyn, who must now surely inherit.

  ‘She’s been blinked.’

  I twist round at the sound of Creeda’s voice. She stands on the landing, a good few paces from the door. The emotion on her face startles me.

  I expected triumph. Something malign, sinister. But there is no mistaking the expression written there.

  Creeda is terrified.

  ‘It is an apoplectic fit.’ I sound withering in my derision, far more confident than I feel. ‘I understand that she has suffered them before.’

  In answer, Creeda gestures at the brass lock on the door.

  Ninety-nine.

  ‘Blinked,’ Creeda repeats. ‘Even you, Hester Why, must see it. Something’s going in and out of that room at night. Feeding off her.’ She shoots one anguished glance at Miss Pinecroft before turning and clomping down the stairs.

  A moment later I hear her again. ‘Leave that! Leave it be. Go on with you.’

  Buckets clanking, the skitter of maid’s feet. Whatever monstrous objects she hid within the urn, she does not want them touched.

  I take my mistress’s hand. It is limp and cold as a dead fish. ‘W
hat is happening?’ I beseech her. ‘What can I do for you?’

  She is inscrutable as always. For once, it is not her fault.

  This apoplectic fit has damaged her nerves more severely than the last. Already I can see the alteration: slackness all over the body and the candles in the brain gradually winking out. There is no saying whether we shall get her back.

  I wish it were the season for lady’s smock. That would be the best herb to use. But the frost has devoured everything and there is so little at my disposal. I should have stocked the cupboards against this. That is what I am paid for. How uncaring I have been, how flagrantly selfish. I should have thought of more than my precious laudanum.

  But there is one person in this house who requires even more help than Miss Pinecroft.

  From behind the walls, Rosewyn whimpers softly. Not for others to hear, the noise flows down the corridor towards me rhythmically, perfectly even in volume and in pitch, as though it is something she does not control, as natural as her own heartbeat. I wonder how many hours she has spent thus. Alone. Waiting.

  ‘A moment,’ I whisper to Miss Pinecroft, patting her hand. ‘I shall be gone for just a moment.’

  Leaving the door to Miss Pinecroft’s chamber open, I creep to Rosewyn’s room. My footsteps fall as softly as they would in church. I do not want to startle her. This morning’s screams and uproar will have scared her enough.

  It is only when I reach the locked door that I realise how canny Creeda has been. Her line of salt fills the gap between the wood and the floor exactly. She did not put a grain out of place when she closed the door. How many years of measurement and practice would that take?

  I sink down, peer instead through the keyhole. Rosewyn sits on the floor, knees hugged against her chest, slowly rocking. It reminds me of the day I took the Farley children to see the poor caged beasts at the Tower Menagerie. It is heartbreaking.

  ‘Miss Rosewyn,’ I whisper.

  She moans.