The Mermaid's Call

by Katherine Stansfield

  ‘You mean the Ians family? They didn’t like the match between you?’

  ‘They didn’t like anything Joseph did. None of his wonderful ideas. They never believed in him.’ Her voice was shrill now, as if she was a girl again, and in truth she did look all at once younger. The love she had felt for him, this man who had forgotten her, made her tired face slip its lines. Made her eyes dance.

  ‘But you believed in him, Nancy.’

  ‘That’s why he called me that name, the one you said. No one’s called me that in … Oh, more years than I can bear to count!’ She smiled at me through her tears. ‘Crocus. His crocus. Never to lose her bloom, no matter the wait.’ She laughed again, but sad now, a cruel laugh at herself. ‘And I waited. Most of my life I waited for him to come back.’

  ‘And then he did,’ I said quietly.

  A wave of pain broke over her then, over her whole body. She was brought low by it, falling forward on the table with the agony. Her breath left her in a deep moan, as if the memory was squeezing all the air from her. I thought of the cry Mrs Hawker had heard on the cliff that night, how frightened she’d been by it, and I was frightened at that moment in the Temperance Hotel, for no living person should make a noise like that. It was the sound of misery.

  There was another noise. It came from the door. Someone thumped it. Was it Anna, back with the constable?

  Nancy’s chest was still pressed against the table, as if she was pinned in place by her grief. ‘They’ll hang me, won’t they?’ she whispered into the wood.

  The man from the counter was unlocking the door. I moved closer to her. There was hardly any time.

  ‘I … I have to know,’ I said, my tongue all at once thick in my mouth, as if it was someone else’s. ‘In the sea, is there someone … Something …’

  With a struggle she forced herself to sit upright again. She was frowning at me. I swallowed.

  ‘The sea?’ she said.

  ‘I mean, was it a creature of the sea that killed Joseph? Some … spirit, that speaks with the voice of a woman. That calls. A terrible call, it is.’

  The door was open, and there was Anna, and a man came in behind her. A man in a dark coat with shiny buttons.

  ‘Was it a mermaid who killed him?’ I said quickly.

  Nancy Seldon was looking at me as if I had cursed her. The man in the dark coat was striding over to us. A man who knew his purpose.

  ‘I did it,’ Nancy said, angry now. ‘I did it. I’d waited long enough. I thought the sea would take him, once I’d cut him, but it didn’t. There was nothing in the sea wanted Joseph Ians.’

  The constable was at my side. His coat stank from the rain getting in the wool. He bade me move, and then he had Nancy by the arm, was hauling her away. I had one last sight of her face, older now than it had ever looked before.

  ‘Charlotte,’ she said – my true name.

  And the Temperance Hotel was washed away in darkness.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Anna said we must eat before we went back to Morwenstow. She said that was why I had fainted, for when she asked me when I’d last eaten, I couldn’t answer her. So perhaps she was right, and it wasn’t because I had stood before the spirit that lived in the sea and called wretches to their ends, wasn’t because I had been called by my true name. Perhaps it hadn’t happened at all.

  So we had stew and bread before the fire, for our clothes needed drying, and Anna told me the food was good, and I said yes, yes it was, though I could taste nothing. After the excitement of the constable coming and Nancy being taken away, the hotel had quietened. People had gone back to eating and drinking tea and wondering if tomorrow would be dryer than today.

  ‘Where did he take Nancy?’ I said. ‘The constable?’

  ‘The cell at his lodgings. Not much more than a room, I gather, but it’s got a stout lock. They don’t have many murderesses in Bude, he told me. Once I’d managed to convey the seriousness of the situation, he couldn’t get into his boots quick enough.’

  ‘But Nancy won’t stay here long, will she?’

  Anna pulled a strand of onion from her teeth and laid it gently on the table, as if it were a precious thing she’d need to keep. ‘She’ll be taken to Bodmin in the morning.’

  ‘To the gaol?’

  ‘You sound surprised by this, Shilly, which is itself surprising.’ She set down her spoon and wiped her hands on her skirt. ‘Tell me, what did you and Nancy speak of while I went for the constable?’

  ‘Nancy told me herself what we had guessed.’ My spoon was heavy in my hand. Too heavy to hold.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And of her pain.’

  Anna ran her tongue across her teeth. ‘I see. But there was no danger she would have got away, was there, Shilly? I was right to trust you?’

  I nodded quickly and made myself pick up my spoon again.

  ‘Good,’ she said again, but her voice said she didn’t believe I was good. Not good at all.

  ‘Was it Captain Ians you were talking of, Anna, when we were down by the water?’

  Now it was her spoon that lolled. ‘The captain?’

  ‘You said, he was right. About not having an agency, not making it work. Who was right?’

  ‘I think you’re mistaken, Shilly. I don’t believe I said any such thing.’

  Was that true? I tried to remember, but Anna was speaking again.

  ‘Captain Ians is the only part of this case that doesn’t quite make sense.’

  ‘You mean his dream,’ I said.

  ‘That he should see his brother’s death before it happened. How to explain it?’ She was frowning at me, as if thinking how to explain me likewise, for the captain’s dream was much like the way I saw things sometimes. And what was the truth there? I didn’t know.

  ‘The captain was certainly right about one thing,’ Anna said. ‘It was a woman who lured his brother home, but it wasn’t the dead man’s lover, after all, and it wasn’t his sister either.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Captain Ians knew from the dream that a woman had a part to play in his brother’s death. It was The Eliza he was thinking of. A ship with a woman’s name. That was what brought Joseph back. The money he’d earned from her.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, when in my head I said no. No, Anna, I can’t believe it’s as simple as that. Because Nancy called me Charlotte, I knew she did, and I had no sense how she knew my true name. I hadn’t spoken it in Morwenstow, had no cause to, and I was certain Anna wouldn’t have done. I often thought she’d forgotten my name wasn’t Shilly. That I had been someone else before that.

  But there was another way of looking at it. Charlotte wasn’t just my name. It was Mrs Hawker’s too. Was Nancy’s last word a sign she blamed Mrs Hawker? A curse on her? After all, it was Mrs Hawker who’d brought Joseph back to Morwenstow. Face to face with him at the parson’s hut, Nancy couldn’t go on telling herself he was dead, that that was why he hadn’t come back for her. Mrs Hawker had forced the truth on her, and it was wretched.

  Or was Nancy telling me that it was Mrs Hawker all along, that she was of the mermaid? Some shared saltwater blood, their shared rage. The voice had been heard in Morwenstow all these years. It had to come from somewhere.

  All of this thinking, and I had the words for only one question – bare and plain, and not the right one.

  ‘And what of the mermaid?’ I asked Anna.

  ‘I think we can safely say that the vengeful women of Morwenstow are those on land. Now, eat up. We must get back to the vicarage tonight. The Hawkers and Captain Ians deserve to hear what’s taken place here.’

  ‘And then home?’

  She stood and pulled on her coat. ‘Home?’

  ‘To Boscastle, and to Mathilda.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Where else?’

  It was late when we reached the vicarage but all the lights were burning. The porch door was thrown open before we’d had chance to knock. The parson pulled us inside, helped us find a cl
ear path through the dogs and the cats to reach the drawing room, where we had sat with him the first night we’d come to Morwenstow. And this was to be our last time under this fine roof. We had done what we came to do and now we had to get back, to Mathilda.

  Mrs Hawker and Captain Ians were seated by the fire. The room was so hot and smoky, they’d surely been waiting hours for us.

  Mrs Hawker rushed to us. ‘You found her? You found Nancy before she could get away?’

  ‘We did,’ Anna said. ‘She’s in the charge of the Bude constable.’

  ‘Oh, thank heavens!’ Mrs Hawker threw her arms around her husband. Her dress was different to that she had worn that afternoon, and one sleeve was bulky. I guessed it must be a dressing on the wound Nancy had given her.

  ‘Let them come in, my dear,’ the parson said, for the four of us were crowded in the doorway. He took her by the elbow and steered her back to her chair.

  Captain Ians hadn’t risen. In truth, he didn’t look as if he had the strength to rise. I hadn’t thought he could become any paler and more ill-looking than when I had last seen him at the Bush, but he looked worse still that night in the drawing room. He was the drowned man again, but this time he’d been too long at the bottom of the sea. The fish had begun to eat him.

  ‘It’s done?’ he murmured. ‘The woman who killed Joseph is caught?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, for I needed to say it out loud. I needed to start believing it myself. ‘Your dream was right, Captain. It was—’

  His eyes had closed, his mouth had fallen open and from it came a soft snore.

  Mrs Hawker patted his shoulder. ‘At last. We’ll let him rest.’

  My Most Righteous Cat was stretched out to claim a whole, wide chair, wide enough for me and Anna to sit together, not touching. Mrs Hawker lifted him gently onto the captain’s lap, so that we could sit in the cat’s stead. His blessed warmth was deep in the horsehair stuffing.

  Anna took off her coat, but before she set it down she took something from the inside pocket. A thick wrap of paper. I thought for a moment it was letters, Joseph’s letters to Nancy, or Anna’s own letters, those I hadn’t had chance to read. But she was giving the packet to Mrs Hawker.

  ‘This belongs to the captain,’ Anna said. ‘I trust you will keep it safe for him this time.’

  Mrs Hawker tore off the paper and gave a cry. It was the money. Joseph’s earnings from The Eliza.

  The parson’s boyish blue eyes widened, and he sank back into his chair.

  ‘After you left for Bude, I told my husband everything,’ Mrs Hawker said to us, and then to the man himself, ‘and he has had the grace to forgive me writing to Joseph, for summoning him home.’

  The parson clutched her hand, and the money was a rustle between them. ‘Your grief is punishment enough for the sin, my dear.’

  There were worse sins in the world than what Mrs Hawker had done. Far worse.

  ‘All is well,’ the parson said. ‘The law has been upheld, what was wrong has been made right.’

  ‘Joseph Ians is still dead,’ I said, for I couldn’t help myself. The parson’s happiness at such a bad business made me want to throw myself onto the fire. ‘And his death brings another, for Nancy Seldon will surely hang.’

  The parson looked uncertain, as if I was telling him a riddle, and a bad one at that. ‘Nancy’s fate is right and proper, Mrs Williams. She has committed the worst sin known to man and so she must pay the ultimate price. That is the natural justice of the world.’ He looked to Anna, smiled nervously as if to ask my husband to see that I was made to understand.

  ‘I would not deny that Nancy has committed a grave crime,’ Anna said, ‘an inexcusable one. But we must acknowledge the part others have played in bringing us to this point. Mrs Hawker, my understanding is that it was your family who forbade the match between Nancy and Joseph.’

  Mrs Hawker gathered the money back into its paper packet. ‘My parents were united in their disapproval, and Frederick and I felt this fair. The Seldons work their own land, for heavens’ sake! They are very different people to ours. But this was all such a long time ago.’ She squeezed her husband’s hand. ‘It hardly matters now.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Anna said, ‘it is the key to your brother’s death. Nancy Seldon was a young girl, naive in the ways of the world and in love with a man who was her social superior in almost every way. He extracted a promise from her, and she kept it all her life. It was all she had in the world – her faith in him, her love. And yet he forgot her. The world was Joseph Ians’ for the taking, while Nancy Seldon had only the wages you paid her to clean your floors.’

  ‘There was no fairness between them,’ I said, trying not to spit the words. ‘No fairness at all. There never is for women like Nancy.’

  ‘Ah, but it’s not always so, is it, Mrs Williams?’ Mrs Hawker said, and there was some slyness in her voice. ‘For you’ve done well in your life, I think.’ Her gaze flicked to Anna, to all the world Mr Williams – my husband who dressed well, spoke well, was of her standing. ‘You have done what Nancy couldn’t.’

  I felt my shame hot all up my back, my neck, my scalp. There was never any escape from people like the Hawkers, like the Ianses. All the wigs and paints in all the world couldn’t hide who I was truly. As I was born into this world, so I would leave it. But I would rather be my own self, she with cows’ dirt scored so deep in her hands that it would never come out, than be like these cruel souls.

  And then I felt a hand grasp my own dirt-scored one. Anna’s hand. She gripped it tight.

  ‘Mrs Hawker, there you are mistaken, comparing two things that could not be more different.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t see it, sir.’

  ‘Well, then I am delighted to explain it,’ Anna said. ‘My wife has been lifted from her start in life. Nancy Seldon was never offered such a chance, and that speaks more about those surrounding her than Nancy herself. It speaks of a want of Christian charity.’

  No one spoke then. I looked Mrs Hawker in the eye and she had to look away. I held tight to Anna’s hand.

  Then the parson gave a nervous laugh. ‘Come, come – we need not speak further of these matters. The world is set to rights, shown by this bounty sent us by the Lord.’ He tapped the packet of money in Mrs Hawker’s lap, then beamed at Anna and I. ‘For this we owe you a debt of thanks. What would you ask of us by way of recompense?’

  If Anna was going to ask for money besides that owed us by the captain, she didn’t have the chance for I spoke first.

  ‘We would see your room at the top of the stairs. The one you keep locked.’

  The parson’s face flushed and he looked to his wife. She in turn looked fretful. But this only made me more certain I was right in my asking. There was much about this man that had been strange and speaking of guilt. The room kept locked, his fear of what might be found on the dead man, him not wanting to see the coroner. How he’d fallen at the funeral. Wasn’t this what guilt looked like? Nancy would go to the gallows but the parson still had something to hide. I couldn’t leave Morwenstow without knowing what was behind that locked door. Would it have anything to do with the mermaid? I didn’t know. But I had to see it for myself.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  ‘What the room holds … It is not pleasant,’ the parson said. ‘This is truly your desire, to see inside it?’

  ‘It is,’ I said.

  ‘As you wish, then, Mrs Williams,’ he said sadly.

  Mrs Hawker clutched his arm. ‘You don’t have to do this, Robert. You know it’s not good for—’

  ‘Stay with Frederick, my dear. If he should wake, he will need you more, I fear.’

  He gave Anna and I a candle each, which made three with the one he carried.

  ‘You will need the light to see it properly,’ he said, ‘all that is there.’

  We followed him up the stairs and our shadows were tall and hunched as they climbed the wall beside us. At the landing he stopped and took a key from deep inside his
long brown gown. His hand was shaking.

  ‘Mrs Williams, I ask you once more, do you truly wish to see that which is better locked away, undisturbed?’

  ‘More than ever, Parson. Open the door and let me see.’

  He nodded, and his shadow was a great shaking beast behind him. Anna kept close to my side. We would go in together.

  The parson fumbled the key into the lock, took a deep breath, turned it. He murmured to the Lord, then pushed open the door.

  At once, the smell of the sea was with us again, as it had been when last we’d seen the parson open the door. It was so strong, we might have been standing on the beach beneath his hut. Before us was a deep bank of darkness.

  The parson stepped back from the door. ‘I have done as you ask. If you must touch that which is kept here, I beg you to leave it as you found it. The labels must be kept in order or my work will be undone.’

  ‘Labels?’ Anna said.

  I held up my candle and went into the room.

  It was full of things. The table set before me, the shelves that ran up every wall, all cluttered. Spectacles. Pocketbooks. Handkerchiefs. Pipes. Lockets on chains. Lockets without chains. Beads. Crosses, the kind that hung in churches. Buttons. A doll with red wool for hair, a dress of blue cloth. Another doll with no dress. A doll with no eyes. A knife with a bone handle – two notches at the hilt. A heap of shoes, each with a scrap of paper tied to the lace, or if there was no lace, threaded on string through an eyelet. Then I saw that everything in there, everything crammed into the parson’s room, had a scrap of paper tied to it in some way.

  ‘My word,’ Anna murmured behind me.

  I picked up a brooch. It was made of tin, a bird, with a hole pierced for an eye. The paper with it had writing on. I put my candle nearer to help me read. The Cal e do ni a, it said. And some numbers. One and eight and four and two.

  I turned, looking for the parson, and found him still on the landing.

  ‘This,’ I said, ‘all this. It’s from the dead. Those who wash in to Morwenstow. Why do you keep it?’