The Silk House : A Novel (2020)

by Nunn, Kayte

  ‘How do you like the merchant’s house?’ he asked.

  ‘Well enough,’ she replied. ‘Prudence, of course, has been kind. And my mistress too, though I fear she is not entirely happy.’ Though Rowan knew better than to gossip about her employers, she trusted Tommy. ‘But Alice …’ She didn’t know how to explain the maid’s countenance without sounding mean-spirited. Besides, Alice had begun to warm to her in recent days, particularly since their mistress’s departure.

  ‘The master likes her, so I hear,’ Tommy said.

  Rowan didn’t have time to ask him how he knew this, for, as she glanced at him she had a flash of a vision. Saw Tommy kissing her, his lips pressing on hers. She had never been kissed, not like the image that appeared in her mind anyway, and the feeling it gave her, like a shiver and a scorching heat all at the same time, was an entirely new one.

  He noticed her looking at him and turned to face her.

  ‘It – it doesn’t bother you? My eye, I mean?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Nothing to be bothered by,’ he said.

  She smiled. An encouragement.

  And so he leaned towards her and gently rested his lips on hers. She pressed back, enjoying the softness of him, the sweetness like a warm strawberry. She found she didn’t mind it, that tremor and the fire that rose between them. Didn’t mind it at all.

  His lips reluctantly left hers.

  Her first kiss. She would remember the moment always.

  ‘We should get back,’ he said reluctantly.

  She grinned at him, holding the newness of the feeling to herself, basking in the glow it gave her, as they retraced their steps along the bridleway to the town. A breeze blew from the east and she fancied the sound of it in the branches sang his name.

  When Rowan returned to the kitchen, Prudence eyed the trout with suspicion. ‘I know who that’s come from,’ she said, taking it from her nonetheless.

  ‘We met near the millpond,’ said Rowan as innocently as she could. ‘I was collecting herbs.’

  ‘I’ll bet you did,’ the cook replied. ‘Don’t you go getting into any mischief, now.’

  Rowan was indignant. ‘I’m no foolish country girl anymore,’ she said. ‘I have my wits about me. At all times.’

  It was true. Outwardly she appeared as a hard-working maid from a respectable family and indeed, she could hardly recall the simple girl she had been but a few months before. The grey broadcloth had been fashioned into a well-fitting gown and despite its ordinary colour was most pleasant to wear and a definite improvement on the patched and worn clothing she had brought with her. For her cap, she had chosen a cherry-red ribbon that lifted her spirits simply to look at it. She was able to complete her work with efficacy, to navigate the busy market with ease, bargaining with the stallholders and conducting herself with newly acquired confidence. Not for the first time, she wished her mother and father were alive to see the capable young woman she had become. Even her hard-to-please aunt would have been satisfied.

  Prudence tipped her head back and laughed loud and long, until Rowan worried that any passer-by might hear the sound coming from the house. ‘Yes, I suppose you do,’ she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

  The next afternoon, she ventured to the apothecary, which lay at the opposite end of the high street to the church, not far from where the cobbles ended and the street became a beaten dirt path. She hoped he might stock the dried versions of the herbs she needed for her mistress, for she was running out of time to find them growing wild. She would need pennyroyal and dittany, black hellebore too. The latter she had only ever been told about, had never seen it with her own eyes, for it did not grow near Inkpen, but her mother had described it to her in such detail that she felt as though she would know it the instant she saw it.

  The shop was gloomy and dank, with only a little light coming in through a small low-set front window. It was at the less prosperous end of the town, where mangy dogs skulked in packs and rats ran boldly across the mud right in front of a person, but as soon as she stepped inside, Rowan felt at home, as if this were a place she had been to before. Even the smells were recognisable: aromas of rosemary and licorice, bitter aloe and ginger root wafted towards her as she surveyed the narrow shelves, the amber and green glass bottles aligned upon them, and at the numerous drawers beneath that surely contained all manner of powerful substances. A counter ran the length of the shop and on it sat a large, heavy-looking stone mortar and pestle, as well as a number of small copper bowls and a fat leather-bound book. It was both strange and familiar all at once; some of the items in the jars were similar to ones her mother used, others unfathomable.

  Rowan was alone in the room. She cleared her throat lustily, and after a moment she heard the sound of a door at the back of the building thudding shut and slow, dragging footsteps upon the stone floor.

  ‘And who have we here? For I am certain I haven’t seen the likes of you before,’ said the man who appeared from the passageway. ‘I would surely remember one with hair so fair.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rowan, putting her hand to the crown of her head and realising that the hood of her cloak had slipped to her shoulders.

  The man was tiny, scarcely taller than her, and his hair was almost as white as hers, though that was likely the effect of age, for the skin on his face was coarse and lined and hung in great folds from a jaw that flapped softly as he spoke. His coat was a rich mossy green, as might be expected in a grotto, and extended well past his knees. Indeed, it seemed to have been made for a far larger man, though his waistcoat stretched tightly over a rounded belly.

  Rowan couldn’t help but stare at him, for he seemed so very peculiar. ‘No, we have not made each other’s acquaintance,’ she said. ‘I am come from the merchant’s house. Mistress Hollander bade me fetch some herbs. Rowan Caswell, maid-of-all-work, sir.’

  ‘Very well. What is it that you desire?’

  Rowan listed the ingredients she needed, and he pulled down canisters and bottles from the shelves, rummaged in drawers and then balanced the ingredients one by one on a set of brass pans. When he had assembled most of what she required and wrapped each one carefully in a twist of paper, he regarded her again, his eyes seeming to bore into her. ‘You said this was for Mistress Hollander?’ he asked, tipping a fine powder from one of the jars onto the pan balance. ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’

  She nodded. ‘I have some of what I need already.’

  ‘Dandelion root? Nettles? Red clover?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And exactly how did you become knowledgeable in such matters?’ he asked, his hands stilling and a frown of suspicion further deepening the creases that lined his face.

  Rowan had no choice but to reveal a little of her past. ‘My mother instructed me in the necessary healing tinctures and poultices.’

  ‘This is more than a mere healing poultice.’

  ‘Is it, sir?’ she asked, pretending innocence.

  ‘This is a strong remedy. I hope she instructed you well.’

  ‘She did,’ Rowan said, quaking a little at his intense regard.

  ‘She was not from these parts then, for I surely would be acquainted with her.’ He opened the book on the counter and flipped through its pages. Rowan could see the closely written script, with measurements and drawings, and craned to get a better view, though she was a poor reader. The apothecary did not seem bothered by her interest and continued to run a finger down one of the pages, muttering to himself.

  When he had finished measuring out all of the herbs she required and made notations in his ledger, she packed them carefully into the basket she had brought with her and bade him farewell, instructing him to send the account for the attention of her mistress.

  Her satisfaction at finally having the required ingredients, however, was soon extinguished. As she emerged from the apothecary, a stranger approached, mouthing the word ‘witch’ at her before crossing to the other side of the street. Shaken, she hurried back towards the merc
hant’s house, chasing the sun as it set over the hills beyond the town, all the while cursing herself for not being more circumspect in her activities and in whom she assisted with her concoctions. She could not risk being tainted with that word. Indeed, was she doing the right thing this day? The potion for her mistress was a far more powerful medicine than a simple ointment or poultice. To conjure new life, that was surely closer to witchcraft?

  As she reached the house she pushed the worry down, as if banking the embers of a fire. The shop was shuttered and the door that connected it to the rest of the building was locked. She had been away longer than she had realised.

  She entered the kitchen from the back of the house to find Alice sitting at the table, polishing a number of small items of jewellery – their mistress’s, she presumed – and Prudence reclining in a chair next to the range with her feet resting on a scuttle and her eyes firmly shut. A gentle snore emanated from her. Alice barely acknowledged her, but Prudence stirred as Rowan drew near. ‘You were gone a good while,’ she said, rousing herself and yawning widely.

  ‘I’m sorry if you missed me,’ Rowan answered. ‘Mistress gave me instructions to visit the apothecary. She asked for an ointment for her chilblains.’

  Alice’s eyebrows rose at the lie but she said nothing.

  Rowan knew that Alice likely had a better idea of her true intentions, but the less said about the real nature of the draught the better. She noticed Alice’s fingers work faster with the cloth and the brooch she held, as if she wanted to buff something out of existence, but as ever, she was inscrutable.

  ‘She has sent word that she will be back a week hence,’ said Prudence. ‘The master is delayed a while longer.’

  Rowan set her basket on the table. ‘Then I have little time to waste.’

  SIXTEEN

  Now

  The fog wrapped the hills like a blanket, swirling around Thea as she ran along the path that led out of the town, and obscuring everything around her. She could barely see a few feet ahead, had to force herself to slow down to avoid tripping on an unseen rock and risking a sprained ankle. Claire had mentioned in the staffroom the day before that the path was one of her favourite running tracks. ‘It’ll take you all the way to Summerbourne, the nearest village to Oxleigh,’ she said. ‘It’s only a couple of miles there and back, but it’s very pretty. Good pub too.’

  Dawn was the faintest glimmer when Thea set out, and it was cold, pinching the tips of her ears and nose, but she soon warmed up as she flew along the lane, spooking an early-rising rabbit and causing a trio of birds to startle as a branch snagged the sleeve of her sweatshirt. The path ran alongside a stream, though the fog was so thick she could hear but not see the rush of water as she passed. By the time she reached Summerbourne she was breathing heavily and her lungs were burning, so she slowed to take in the old red-brick, moss-covered buildings that lined the road: a handful of houses, some freestanding, and others conjoined in rows of three and four, a village hall and, as Claire had promised, a lovely-looking pub with a thatched roof and whitewashed walls. Though lights shone from a couple of the houses she passed, it was eerily quiet, too early for anyone else to be out and about. A little way further along she came across a flint-walled church with a steep spire, stained-glass windows along the nave and gravestones peppering the churchyard. Save for the cars parked at intervals along the narrow road, the village looked as it must have done for centuries, and she could easily imagine what it must have been like to live in such a place in a time long past. A person’s knowledge of the world would have been so limited; likely they never travelled more than a few miles from their home their entire life. Seeing the past coexist with the present like this was one of the things that had drawn her to study and teach history, to try and tease out what had happened in centuries gone by.

  Thea reached the far end of the village, where the lane joined the main road, and then turned around and headed back to the boarding house. As she plunged into the misty valley once more, the clouds of her breath shrouded the already poor visibility and she felt almost as if she were running in a ghost world. As the path drew closer to the river again, the fog thickened and she had to strain to see the way ahead. She heard the race of the water over rocks, could imagine it frothing below.

  Had her father ever walked or run this path as a schoolboy? She imagined him coming this way on a sunny summer’s day, perhaps stopping for a dip in the river after a match at the school’s tennis courts that backed on to this path. She pictured the framed black-and-white photographs of him in his whites, doubles and singles champion, that had decorated the walls of his study at home, and felt a sudden wave of sadness wash over her.

  Lost in her thoughts and the fog, she didn’t see the figure coming towards her until it was almost upon her. It nearly caused her to veer into the ditch, a flash of red as it shouldered its way past.

  ‘Hey!’ she called out, but as she turned, shaken, it was only to see the stranger disappear out of sight. It took her a moment to work it out, but judging by his build, she thought she knew who it was. Why hadn’t he bothered to stop? Granted it was foggy, but he should have seen her, or was he really that self-absorbed? Such behaviour added weight to the opinion she was forming of the arrogant PE teacher. One way or another, she’d get to the bottom of it.

  The mist had begun to clear by the time Thea reached the boarding house. She heard the sounds of the kitchen staff preparing breakfast, the distant babble of a radio, the splash of running water and the occasional high-pitched laugh as the girls got ready for the day.

  She peeled off her sweatshirt and made her way to her room, only to find the door swinging open. She checked the mechanism, certain she had closed it as she left for her run. It seemed to be working, clicking shut and holding firmly against the jamb when she closed it again. A small worry began to form in the back of her mind; did someone else have a key?

  She stepped quickly into her study, looking for anything amiss there, spotting straightaway several small piles of dirt, like miniature pyramids, in the seam between the floorboards at the edge of the room where the rug ended. It reminded her of the pavements of her childhood, where ants burrowed between the cracks, excavating mounds of sand and dirt; but there were no signs of anything similar here. Were there borers in England? She looked more closely, discovering another smaller pile further along. Could it be white ant or dry rot – or whatever they did have here? And if so, were they at risk of the whole house collapsing around their ears? She leaned against the wall and felt it bow beneath her weight, almost making her stumble. She recovered herself and probed more carefully, noticing for the first time what appeared to be a faint shadow running up the corner and along near where the moulding met the ceiling. She tested the wall again, feeling it move a couple of millimetres.

  She was about to investigate further when the alarm sounded, signalling twenty minutes until breakfast. It would have to wait.

  As she ran the water for a shower in her tiny bathroom, she reminded herself that the house had stood for several centuries, so was unlikely to crumble beneath her now.

  SEVENTEEN

  Now

  It was all Thea could do not to gasp aloud as she pulled open the door to the library and stepped inside. The building was cavernous, with high ceilings and shadowed shelves that seemed like they might make excellent hiding places. Wall-to-wall books, some leather-bound, their spines cracked and worn, looked as old as the school itself. There were a number of long tables with old-fashioned green reading lamps at each place, though on this sunny morning light streamed in from a large arched window at the end of the room, rendering them unnecessary. The only nod to the twenty-first century was a series of charging stations at intervals along the tables. The library was empty now, for all of the students were at their classes, and Thea planned to use her additional free hours constructively before she was required in the classroom after lunch.

  She wasn’t going to spend it entirely on school matters, however. T
hough she needed to assess the resources for her A-Level classes, she was also keen to search the shelves for anything that might give a clue to the history of Silk House. The Dame’s mention of the age of the house the evening before had stuck with Thea, sparking her historian’s curiosity and she couldn’t help but wonder as to who had built it, and who had lived, loved, possibly given birth or died, celebrated and cried within its centuries-old walls.

  ‘You must be Miss Rust.’ A voice as rich as fruitcake floated towards her and she turned in surprise as an elderly man materialised from behind a set of shelves. A sprig of lavender in the buttonhole of his jacket drew Thea’s attention; she didn’t think anyone wore such things anymore, apart from at weddings. ‘That’s impressive,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I am afraid I haven’t had the pleasure …’

  ‘Dickens. Barnaby. No relation to the writer, more’s the pity,’ he said, taking her hand in his. ‘And not especially impressive. Details of all new staff are circulated before the start of term.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Thea felt slightly foolish.

  ‘How may I help you?’ he asked, and listened intently as she explained the reason for her visit, adding that she had a particular interest in the history of the area, as it pertained to the treatment of women.

  ‘Accusations of witchcraft specifically,’ she said. ‘In the Tudor and Stuart eras.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ he tapped a finger to his lips. ‘Now about Silk House: it’s been through more hands and incarnations than almost any other building in the high street, I believe. Before the college took it over, it was a boutique hotel, a bed and breakfast, a family home … It was derelict for a number of years. There was a bit of a stoush between the college and a local society for the protection of old buildings when they wanted to buy it, but the college won. It usually does – it’s too important to the town you see, even today. They got it for a song, if local gossip is to be believed. Now, let me see …’ He scuttled off towards the back of the library, disappearing around a corner. After a moment, Thea followed. ‘Here we are.’ He was standing on a ladder that stretched almost to the ceiling and pulled a small, slim volume bound in green leather from the top shelf, handing it to her. ‘This should shed some light on its early history.’