‘I’m not the sort who needs diversions.’ She almost spits the words at me. ‘Do I look like some port whore?’
Yes, I think, and not one of the expensive ones.
‘Oh, Nelly. I didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort. We… we just seem to have got off on the wrong foot and, as we have to continue to live together, perhaps we should try to be civil with each other?’ It’s too late to try to make friends or even pretend – and I don’t believe it was ever an option, with whatever Nelly is carrying about in her mind – but in appearing to make an effort I am fairly sure I can begin to destabilise her. Didn’t Aoife O’Malley teach me how to deal with enemies? I think of Aunt Florrie and her husband, both of whom spilled spite about Aoife for so many years until my grandmother set her charm on Uncle Silas, managing to seduce him out of a sizable portion of his fortune (a mere drop in the ocean of our debts). With one fell swoop she humiliated Florrie and made a fool of Silas. Divide and conquer, play upon frailties. Nelly’s the weak link, she’s the one who reacts with anger; Edward Elliott merely smiles and thinks quickly. Nelly has the answers and they can be plucked from her and in those answers lies the secret to my purported uncle’s downfall.
Seeking a wet nurse, would my father have known what to look for? At Hob’s Hallow, Maura looked after me; here, Ena would have been the first child for whom he had to take some responsibility. How was Nelly presented to him and by whom? “Uncle” Edward, might he have been the conduit? Might he have met my father in a drinking establishment? Edward is very charming, did my light-minded father find him so?
Why are you here in St Sinwin’s?
Business, my dear fellow, and I must find a wet nurse for my infant daughter.
Why, my good man, I have just the woman, of fine character and sound moral virtue!
I imagine them laughing over their shared last name (if that isn’t another lie from Edward), my father paying the bills, making no secret of the weight of his purse. Being taken to meet Nelly Daniels who clearly managed to put up a better front then and there than here and now. But perhaps she wasn’t under the same stresses. Perhaps Liam Elliott’s offer represented a new opportunity, a means to get away from another unpleasant situation or to simply find a life more favourable.
But Nelly, ah Nelly. I give her a smile. I note she doesn’t deny St Sinwin’s at all. I rise, and release Ena from her harness and the high chair. Nelly eyes me, moves as if to take the child.
‘I’ll keep Ena with me today, Nelly, thank you. It will give you time to attend to more things than you can usually get done in a day. Oh, and do consider my proposal. I’m sure Uncle Edward would be amenable, he is very attentive to my requests.’
She says nothing though I can feel she wants to; very restrained of her.
I take Ena to her room and clean her up. I dress her in a pretty frock and sunbonnet, tie the ribbons of her knitted booties, then settle her in the pushchair and take her walking to the village – keeping a good distance from the lake, though there is no sign of any mer today. I greet everyone by name, the sad end to the harvest fest seems to not have left a mark on anyone’s attitude, and people are happy to see me. They comment on how Ena’s grown, how well she looks, how she’s flourishing for a child who’s been without her own mother for so long so soon in her young life. I don’t tell them that many people survive such a thing.
I don’t hurry, I don’t proceed in an obvious fashion towards my goal, I am careful that no one watching would think me intent upon anything. When I see the door I want, I walk up at a leisurely pace and knock without urgency.
When Miriam Dymond answers she looks surprised, but steps aside without question and I enter the cottage, pushing the stroller in front of me.
‘I didn’t thank you,’ she says. ‘For saving my girl.’
‘Everything was rather… disrupted yesterday,’ I say, then smile. Ena’s dozing by this time, giving little whimpers, her feet kicking out as if she’s chasing after rabbits. ‘Thank me by answering some questions and we’ll call ourselves even.’
Miriam tilts her head and gives me a frank look as if assessing how much trouble my seemingly simple request might get her into. Then she nods briskly. ‘Let’s talk while it’s quiet – my lot are at their grandmother’s.’
I follow her through to the small sunny kitchen, painted in a bright yellow. A barely begun beverage steaming on the table and she asks if I’d like one. I say ‘yes’ because Aoife taught me that the little signs of hospitality are a way of putting people at their ease. I sit in one of the chairs, keep pushing Ena’s stroller, back and forth, back and forth to keep her sleeping.
As Miriam pours a strong peppermint brew into another thick-bottomed mug (no pretty porcelain cups here), she says, ‘Well? What do you want to know, Miss Miren?’
‘Is your daughter well? No ill effects?’
‘Adie is no worse for her dip. And again, thank you for her life.’
It’s my turn to shrug. ‘Ah, she’d have floated.’
But we both know she wouldn’t. Not in that strange water.
‘I understand you used to be the housekeeper up at the big house?’
Her lips tighten. ‘And cook, with the Toop girls to help.’
I nod. ‘And I also understand Edward Elliott changed that?’
Her turn to nod. ‘I’m assuming you’re not asking this out of idle curiosity or to make me relive a painful experience?’
‘Not at all.’ I smile. ‘Tell me about Nelly Daniels. Keziah Eddy said she used to talk to the folk in the village, once upon a time.’
Miriam slides the mug across to me, sits down and sips at her own. ‘I didn’t like her before she took my job, but I couldn’t have put my finger on why. You get a feeling. She boasted how she’d come from a fancy job in St Sinwin’s and wasn’t she special to be chosen to come to Blackwater? How Mr Liam had wooed her away with a bigger salary and no domestic duties, nothing beyond wet-nursing the little miss.’ She nods at Ena, drooling and snoring softly. ‘And she had her own daughter, Meraud – Merry – same age, they even looked alike. Very different temperaments, though.’
‘How so?’ I ask, glancing down at Ena.
‘This one,’ she nods at my little sister, ‘used to be a foul little brat. Crying and wailing, pulling at your mother’s last nerve. No one in the village would look after her to give Nelly a break. I’ve had five children and mine can be mean as rats, but I’ve never seen anything like this one. Only your mother could calm her with that touch of hers, but Mrs Elliott couldn’t spend all her time seeing to the child.’ Miriam shakes her head. ‘But look at her now, she seems to have become a happier creature.’
‘How long since you saw Ena?’ I ask.
‘Five months – five months since your uncle turned me out. Seen you walking around with her, of course, but not up close until today.’
And I think how Isolde hadn’t done much mothering – she left me so young, and Maura cared for me even before my parents left – she had no experience when Ena came along. ‘Was Isolde not able to feed Ena herself?’
Miriam shakes her head. ‘Your mother had no milk… and she was impatient with the child. Loved her, but… You need to understand that my mother used to work for your parents, then when Mam got too old, I took over. She’s kind, your mother, everyone loves her, and when she touches your hand you feel as happy as you ever had.’ She shakes her head. ‘But I wouldn’t say we were ever friends.’ Then she hesitates.
‘Miriam, nothing you can say will offend me. I did not know my parents, they left me with my grandparents when I was a small child; they’re strangers to me.’ I swallow. ‘But I am trying to find the truth about them.’
She nods. ‘Your father didn’t care for anyone on this estate. He was pretty and arrogant and high-handed, thought himself better than everyone. He was devoted to your mother, but that’s all I can say was his saving grace. He never consulted, only gave orders, never took advice, didn’t share any information unless he had
to. He was a bad manager, and only your mother’s hand kept people here.’
I already know Uncle Edward is no great estate manager; my father neither apparently. ‘Miriam, who told you that Edward Elliott was my father’s brother?’
‘Nelly. She said, back when she bothered to say anything, that they’d met on the road, a chance encounter.’
‘And they were all in the house together for three months?’
She nods. ‘Then one night there was the fire and Meraud died, and the next day your parents left for Breakwater, and that same afternoon your uncle told all the house staff they were no longer needed.’
‘What happened when Nelly’s daughter died?’
‘Your uncle told Mr Redman there had been an accident. That the wing would be closed off, there’d been a fire.’ She nods at Ena. ‘This is the closest I’ve seen Miss Ena in several months.’
Told. Told, but no one to gainsay or speak the truth and the only people who knew otherwise were Nelly Daniels and Edward Elliott. I look down at Ena, sleeping there. A thought creeps over me. Two girl children, enough alike to pass as sisters; one happy, one miserable. And this little sister at my feet who’s not been seen by anyone but Nelly Daniels for months and who’s nature has so miraculously “settled” since then?
I swallow hard. Ena was not my mother’s first baby; she would not have been branded the way I was, the way Isolde was, the way Aoife was, nor any of the first born O’Malleys.
Edward Elliott emptied the house of witnesses. My parents are dead. What if Edward lied about when the fire occurred? When Meraud died? What if all this was sparked by a tiny murder?
‘How was Nelly’s temper with my sister? Ena was a difficult child.’
The way Miriam’s lips press together tells me all I need to know.
33
When I returned to the house, I hand Ena over to Nelly who, I suspect, is the child’s true mother. I go to my room and lock the door. From the bottom of the blanket box I pull out the book of O’Malley tales Isolde had begun to remake, the first chance I’ve had to truly look at it.
There are ten pages at the beginning that are blank and this strikes me as strange. I think of the old version back at Hob’s Hallow, of the pages sliced from its front. I carefully go through the tome, examining every sheet, making sure that none are stuck together. I look at the bare folios: I flick water on them, hold it up to the afternoon sun at the window, light a candle to see if smoke will show any secrets hiding there, I nick a finger and try the same with blood, all to no avail. And then, at last, I reach the end. Stuck to the back cover, in no way hidden, is a small fold of parchment to make a pouch. And in the pouch, sheaves covered with tightly written jagged script – in a hand I cannot recall seeing before – on the same sort of paper from the old book of tales, their edge neatly sheared by a knife, perhaps one with a pearl handle.
I put the volume onto the floor beside my chair, smooth the pages in my lap and I begin to read.
* * *
There was a woman, once, who sang.
She wasn’t beautiful, or at least not noticeably so, not like other women about whom bards crooned or poets wrote, but she was tall and dark-haired, dark-eyed, she moved with a grace that could render her invisible if she chose, or the centre of attention if, again, she so chose.
But she sang.
And she played a harp made not of wood, yet carved in the same shape as might be expected. The strings were knotted from hair as black as ebony and enchanted to make the right notes. The instrument was made of bone, which anyone who got close enough to examine it would realise, though it had been varnished to a high shine. The strings were held in place by finger-bones, yet the sounds that issued from a thing made of death were nothing short of bewitching. And none knew whose bones had been used in the creation of the thing, and none ever would.
And the woman, she sang.
She sang with a voice that might have called souls from bodies, caused hearts to turn from their dearest beloveds, and minds to lose their grip upon any sort of rationality. She sang thus and thus she made her way in the world.
She might have settled in any number of cities, become a favourite of a prince or kingling, become wife to a rich man, lover to a rich woman, or a creature of means all of her own. But she was never content. Nothing was enough. She made fortunes, then lost them, over and again, not through carelessness or stupidity but boredom. She had made them before, she wanted to see if she could make them again. And she did.
She did.
Without anchor, she wandered. From city to city, town to town, village to village, wasteland to wasteland. She even entered the Dark Lands for a time and left them once more, intact, untouched by the Leech Lords for her voice affected even those with neither soul nor conscience nor regard for life beyond that it might be taken as sustenance. And perhaps, there, she learned things too about getting one’s own way, although the gods knew well enough that she was already well versed in such means.
Still she wandered, through cities great and small, through ruins and wreckages. Until at last she came to tiny village by the sea where the waves broke over a reef. And she wandered further still, to an even tinier place, where only a few shacks and cottages stood. She walked to the edge of the promontory and stared out. She watched forms duck and dive in the waters below, and after some time watching, she took the switchback path down to the pebbled shingle at the base of the cliffs.
She found a rock and sat, kicked off her boots and dipped her feet into the salt water, and sighed. The sounds of the sea, of the waves and their shifting and plaint, summoned in her a sense of peace such as she had never known. Then she took the harp of bone from her back and began to play. She played and she sang and soon the very waves were dancing to her tune, as if in turn for their enchanting her, she had bewitched them in return. And in those waves were forms, the forms she’d seen from the promontory.
Merfolk, male and female, came to listen; not delicate tiny things, not frail gems, but great muscular beings, proud and arrogant, with shining skin, flowing locks and eyes dark as the bottom of the ocean. After a time, when she was sure she’d gotten their attention, she ceased to play. Then, when all but one had drifted away she began to play once more for one was all she needed.
The male, for male it was, was pale as if the moon lived a little beneath his skin, his long hair the brown-green of seaweed, his eyes the green-black of a storm. The woman could see the tears of gills in his muscular throat, the light patina of scales across his flesh, the green-scaled armour of his long thick tail almost an entity on its own as it flicked behind him. At last he beached himself and lay sprawled in the shallows, untroubled by the cold of the winds, watching her intently.
After a little more time, she set aside the harp and went to sit by his side. She sat and they spoke, and they spoke and she sat, until at last he told her of a sea cave at the other end of the shingle, not so far away, somewhere they could be alone and not beneath the eyes of his brethren. And she went in through the spilt in the rock that looked as though the hands of a god had pulled the stone up like a drapery; and he swam up from the depths, into the pool that took up half the cavern, lit as it was with blue-green algae. And there they met and there they mated.
They met there day after day, and she did not need to sing him to her, not after that first time. He was enthralled and she was fond of him in her own way.
He was no prince of the sea, but a commoner (and only a commoner could have avoided his duties for long), yet he knew the secrets of his kind. He knew how the bounty of the oceans might be harvested. He told her all these things in the sanctity of the lovers’ confessional; he told her for lovers think that in sharing what is secret, they tie the beloved to them. Yet the untruth of this is only ever uncovered in the aftermath, and thus are covenants broken and hearts soon after.
He did not think she would find a use for the knowledge.
Yet he did not know her, he could not know how she hungered, how it h
ad driven her across continents. He could not know how vaunting her ambition, how all-consuming. He could not know that even though she had found a place she loved, the promontory, the sea, that it was not entirely enough.
A place, she thought, to stay and to build. And a challenge, she believed, would be enough for her, were she to achieve it.
The village of Breakwater was so small, so far away, no one had laid claim to the land on the promontory, so she took it for her own. She employed men to make her a tower home, a square thing of no great magnificence but it kept the elements at bay, gave her a place to lay her head those days and nights when she did not choose a sandy pillow. And she had them dig a well, a strange deep thing, a strange wide thing, in the middle of the tower’s cellar, so deep that it went down into the waters below the rock, to where all the waters in the world are joined, and she had a master craftsman fashion a hinged gate whose bars were engraved with spells of entrapment, that could be hidden in the walls of the well, then sprung shut like jaws when the time was right. And a fine strong net hung beneath and a chute there was too, a mechanism that would catch anything that fell from above, then scooped into a channel that could be accessed by a small vertical tunnel beside the well itself. A means to harvest.
Her lover had told her of the ones who ruled the oceans, the sea-queens, how few there were, how powerful, how shoals came at their command, how the waters disgorged their treasure, how their tails were scaled with the truest silver, purer than anything dug of the earth. He told her how they might be called and caught, of the words and songs that might summon them to the singer. And she had listened.
And every day she asked him to tell her more and she scribbled those tales onto parchments, some she made into songs, some she burned as offerings. And at last she grew gravid and her belly swelled; she worried, a little, what this child might be, more father or mother, but she shrugged and waited to see. And one day, at last, the tower and the well were ready. And one day, at last, she took her harp and a candle, and she went down into the cellar and she sat.
All the Murmuring Bones Page 26