by Nunn, Kayte
One of the women reached for her hand, squeezed it reassuringly, and as she did so, Thea felt Fiona take the other. Here they were in a small back garden, stars beginning to prick the sky, the moon full and luminous. Five women holding hands in a circle in a garden after dark.
In another time, they would have been burned at the stake for less.
Afterwards, when everyone had left, there was another knock on the door. She went to answer it, thinking that Fiona must have forgotten something, but was surprised to see Mr Dickens standing in front of her.
‘Ah, Miss Rust. I’m glad I’ve caught you. Forgive me for intruding, but – ’ He held out a brown paper-wrapped rectangle. ‘I found it. The book: the one you wanted.’
‘But I thought you said it wasn’t allowed to leave the library?’
Thea didn’t get a reply to her question, for he pressed the package into her hands, raised a finger to his lips and turned to leave. ‘I must be off.’
She shut the door, grateful that he hadn’t appeared earlier, for goodness knows what he would have made of the scene in the garden. Thea had been unable to find the Dame but knew she would certainly have to explain things to her at some point. She didn’t want news of it to reach the headmaster’s ears, for she doubted that he would be sympathetic.
When she eventually reached her bedroom that night, she found the door ajar and incense still hanging thickly in the air up there. She flicked on a lamp and immediately noticed something different about the room. Everything was as neat as she had left it, with one exception: the tin had fallen off the shelf and lay on its side, halfway across the room. It had probably been knocked over by Fiona, despite her promise not to touch anything. As Thea picked it up, checking that it had not come unscrewed, and set it straight, a thought flashed into her mind: might it have something to do with the disturbances in the house? She sighed, as another thought, one that had lingered in the back of her mind since she arrived here, pushed its way forward. I have to do it. I should have dealt with it weeks ago. But not tonight. Soon, though.
Thea reached for the book Mr Dickens had brought her and lay back on the bed, flicking through the pages until she found the part where she had left off. The type was dense and she strained to read it, but she persisted as the minutes ticked away, until it was past midnight. When she reached the final chapter she could hardly believe what it described.
That night she dreamed of the woman again. They were in Thea’s study, though it looked older, the paintwork was a different colour, and there was no sign of Thea’s desk or bookcase. Strands of fair hair, not dark as before, had escaped the hood of her cloak, though Thea could not make out her face. She seemed to be pointing to the wall.
Thea woke in a cold sweat and glanced at her watch. Two a.m. The same time she’d woken almost every night since she’d been there. Clearly Fiona’s ‘cleansing ritual’ hadn’t had the desired effect. Again, there was the distant sound of a piano, and she squinted across to the smart alarm to see if that was where the music was coming from, but it didn’t appear to be. Surely no one would be playing downstairs at this time? She was about to get out of bed to investigate when she remembered. A piano. Of course. She had read earlier about the delivery of a pianoforte – the town’s first. It had been a gift for the lady of the house.
Someone, or something, was trying to tell her something. She was beginning to have an idea who, but she still had no idea what.
THIRTY-THREE
July 1769, Oxleigh
Rowan woke to find a lantern shining directly into her eyes and Alice leaning over her, pulling her by the shoulders. ‘Come quickly. Quickly, I said,’ she urged in a whisper.
‘What … What is it?’ Rowan asked, blinking in the half-light.
‘There’s blood, so much blood.’ She gave a half-sob.
Was it the tincture? Surely it would have taken effect before now? ‘You should be lying down, Alice,’ Rowan said. ‘Too much activity will make it worse.’
Alice shook her head violently. ‘’Tis not me.’
‘Someone from the town, then?’ Rowan asked. ‘Come to ask for help?’
Alice shook her head again, pulling her towards the door.
In that moment Rowan knew: there could only be one other so affected. As they descended the stairs, her mistress’s wails became louder, the sound echoing chillingly through the darkened house. Once, in the summer before her father died, she had been out in the fields with him early one morning when they had come across a leveret, its hind leg caught in a trap. The noise coming from her mistress’s chamber put her in mind of the high-pitched keening of the young hare as it thrashed against the rusty metal.
As they ran, Rowan remembered the gown her mistress had worn to the assembly rooms the fortnight before and then, with dread, the feeling that had come over her when she had tried it on. She mouthed a prayer under her breath, hoping she was mistaken.
‘What’s that?’ Alice asked, holding the lantern up to Rowan’s face.
‘Nothing,’ she replied, stilling the movement of her lips.
The sight that greeted them was one Rowan wished never to see again. It was as she imagined a slaughterhouse might be, for her mistress’s sheets were painted with blood, dark as pitch in the dim light. She gagged at the smell that pervaded the chamber, her flesh crawling as she remembered the last time she had been in the presence of such an odour, a reek that was burned into her memory. Her mother had assisted at a birth, and had taken Rowan with her to help, but the baby’s head had been stuck too long and her mother had been unable to stop the bleeding. Neither patient had survived.
It took all of Rowan’s determination to force herself across the threshold and into the room. She reached the ewer on the dresser to one side of her mistress’s bed and moistened the square of cloth placed there. While Alice stood back, Rowan approached the head of the bed, stepping aside a puddle of vomit on the Turkey rug and placing the cloth on her mistress’s forehead, holding it firmly against her thrashing.
‘Alice, is that you?’ Caroline cried out as she felt the cloth.
‘Rowan, mistress,’ she replied, her voice low. ‘Where is the pain?’ she asked.
A deep guttural groan and then she answered. ‘My belly, my shoulders … it hurts like I have the devil himself inside me trying to come out.’
Rowan bid Alice bring the lantern closer and did her best to assess the bleeding. The coverlet was thrown back and there were patches of brighter blood against the older, darker stains that had soaked the sheets.
‘Tell me it is not the baby,’ Caroline begged. ‘Anything but that.’
‘May I?’ Rowan asked, pressing gently on her mistress’s stomach, feeling below her ribs and then lower still.
Caroline gave another scream that would have woken the whole house, those in the street too, had the windows not been shut. Then, a noise at the chamber door: Prudence, a gown wrapped about her. ‘What occurs?’ she asked, her eyes widening as she took in the scene. ‘I’ll fetch some water, we need to get her clean.’
Before Prudence left, Rowan went across to the cook and spoke softly in her ear. Prudence nodded as she understood what Rowan was telling her.
Alice let out a low moan. ‘It is all her doing – ’ She pointed at Rowan. ‘She sees things that others do not. It is a bad magic. I caught her whispering the words of a spell earlier.’
‘Is this true?’ asked Prudence, looking sharply at Rowan.
Rowan’s eyes darted between the two of them, furious with Alice and upset that Prudence did not dismiss the accusation outright. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, finding her voice. ‘It was nought but a prayer. Now, hush. We must not cause the mistress upset. Let us do as Prudence suggests and clean her as best we can,’ she added. ‘And bring as many clouts as you have to hand. She is burning up.’
Despite her young age, Rowan took control of the situation; it was as if her mother’s hands were guiding her as she assessed her mistress’s condition.
; Prudence returned, and they set to work removing the bloodied sheets and replacing them with clean ones, being as gentle with Caroline as they were able. Rowan could see that there did not appear to be any more fresh blood, nor sign of the infant and she murmured another, grateful, prayer. ‘Should we call for the barber-surgeon?’ Prudence asked.
‘No!’ cried Rowan, for she had heard of the terrible harm that such men could inflict, that they were no better than a butcher.
‘The doctor, then?’
Rowan nodded reluctantly and Prudence commanded Alice, who still hovered by the door, to make at once for the medic’s house. Rowan went to her attic room to dress, leaving Prudence with their mistress.
When she returned to the bedchamber, she took one of the cloths that Prudence had brought and soaked it in a fresh bowl of water, wringing it out and laying it across her mistress’s brow, which was as hot as the coals from the fire. Caroline opened her eyes briefly at her touch, but they were blank, unseeing, and rolled back into her head. In that moment Rowan feared for her mistress’s life, for her spirit seemed all but extinguished. As they waited for the doctor, Rowan sang to her, an old song she’d heard as a young girl. ‘When the moon shines bright on his fair face, when the wind calls him home, when the frost is gone from the ground, then will my love return.’ As she sang, her thoughts turned to the master, and when he might come home, for he had left Oxleigh two days after the cotillion, claiming business in Bath once again.
When the doctor arrived, he banished everyone but Rowan from the room while she explained how they had found her mistress. ‘Open the shutters at once, for we must rid the air of the putrid miasma that has taken hold,’ he barked. ‘Where is Mr Hollander?’
‘Away, sir. We know not when he will return,’ Rowan said as she hastened to do as he asked. The sun was up now and the noise of the street, the wheels of carts and stagecoaches grinding over the cobbles, horses neighing and flower-sellers calling out their wares, flew into the room with the cold air. It seemed cruelly unfair that the rest of the town carried on, going about its business as on any other day, while her mistress lay suspended between this world and the next.
‘May God speed him home,’ he said, drawing near to the bed and taking careful observation of his patient. Then, ‘Give her barley water and beef tea if she will take it, and send someone to the apothecary for salt of wormwood. I will call again tomorrow.’
‘And the baby?’ Rowan asked.
‘I cannot feel movement,’ he said. ‘But that in itself is not a conclusion.’
When the doctor had gone, Rowan returned to her mistress’s side, frustrated that such a highly regarded medical man had been unable to do more for her. The fever still burned strong, causing her body to shudder and shake as if she had the palsy. The breeze that came in from the window cooled her not one bit.
Rowan tended to her all that day, and there was still no sign of Patrick Hollander. Prudence brought broth and a cold plate for Rowan, the furrow of her forehead deepening as she regarded them both.
Much later, as the light faded from the window, Rowan closed the shutters and lit the oil lamp. She bent over to place it on the table next to the bed and noticed that her mistress no longer shivered with fever. She was shrunken and pale, blanched to the colour of her sheets, and her fair hair was dark with sweat, but her breathing had calmed and her face had become serene again. Her eyes fluttered open and Rowan drew back, embarrassed at having been caught so close to her.
‘Mistress,’ she said.
‘Drink,’ Caroline whispered.
Rowan reached for the bowl of broth and spooned a little into her mouth. It was as if she were feeding a hatchling, so small were her mistress’s sips.
The effort appeared to exhaust her and, after no more than half a cupful, Caroline lay back on her pillows and slept once more.
Alice, who had been absent the best part of the day sent to the apothecary and on other errands, peered into the room. ‘How … how is she?’
‘Better, I think,’ Rowan said quietly. ‘The bleeding has stopped. She must rest.’
‘Has she …’
‘What?’ asked Rowan.
‘Does she …’
‘Out with it,’ she said, annoyed at the interruption and still angry at Alice’s earlier accusation.
‘Has she lost the child?’
‘There was so much blood that it is indeed a possibility that it no longer lives within her.’
Rowan could not read the expression on her face, but something about Alice’s demeanour disturbed her. She seemed almost pleased.
The next morning the doctor returned and, after a perfunctory examination, pronounced Mistress Hollander over the worst of her fever. He instructed Rowan to continue the doses of wormwood, diluted in water. ‘It is not certain yet whether the child still grows,’ he said as he took his leave. ‘But I believe Mistress Hollander is saved. For now.’
Moments after the doctor had gone, there was a commotion in the street outside the house, followed by the slam of the front door and the sound of boots thudding fast and heavy on the staircase. Caroline raised herself slightly from her reclining position. ‘My husband?’
Patrick Hollander burst into the bedchamber as if a man possessed. ‘I saw him in the street!’ he cried. ‘The doctor. What occurs? Are you quite all right, my dear?’
Rowan stilled the gasp of surprise that rose from her throat, for he little resembled the man she had come to know as her master. His hair was awry, his normally white breeches filthy with mud, his jacket half off his body and his waistcoat torn. He looked as though he had been set upon by highwaymen and come off much the worse for it.
Caroline did not appear to notice his dishevelled appearance, instead summoned a faint smile for him. ‘A weakness, that is all. I am much recovered.’
Patrick looked from his wife to Rowan and Alice. ‘Is this true? Nothing more serious? The baby?’
Rowan did not reply. It was not her place to contradict her mistress, no matter the untruths she spoke.
‘Do not worry after me. A little blood, that was all,’ Caroline insisted.
‘But the baby?’
‘Should be just fine,’ she interrupted him. ‘I merely have to be patient, rest and wait.’
‘Wait? What for?’ he demanded.
‘For him – or her – to grow strong, of course,’ she said. ‘But what has happened to you? Your clothes …’
Patrick sat down heavily on the bed. ‘Our coach met with misfortune, that is all. Overturned on the road not far from Melksham. We had to drag it out of a ditch. But there is no need to dwell on such matters. Bath was most agreeable and I am happy to report that I have secured a lease on a fine building in the midst of the town. I am returned to arrange the delivery of stock henceforth.’
‘And who shall tend to the shop there?’ Caroline asked.
‘Why, myself, of course.’
‘So, you will be gone from us again?’ Disappointment marred her face.
‘Aye, on the morrow, for I must return at once.’
‘And here?’
‘Jeremiah does an admirable job of serving our customers. Do not worry yourself about such things. For certainly you have never had need to do so before.’ He reached for her hand and squeezed it gently.
Rowan turned to leave, but as she did so she caught Alice’s stricken expression and followed her gaze to where it rested on their master. Seconds later, a horrifying thought occurred to her. Could Alice have used the draught she had made up for her on their mistress? She dared not contemplate such a vile thing, for if it were true then she was to blame as well.
THIRTY-FOUR
Now
Aside from the stormy day of the ill-fated hike, it had been an unseasonably dry autumn. Thea had been watching the weather forecast with a careful eye, wondering when this supposedly damp country would get the rain for which it was so well known. So far there had been nothing heavier than mist, but only a steady downpour and darkness wou
ld do, for they would not only obscure her presence but also allow her actions to go unnoticed. The rain would wash away any evidence.
Before she had left Melbourne, her mother had pressed the anonymous tin into Thea’s hands, asked her to take it with her. A final filial duty.
That week, the forecast was for a low-pressure system approaching from the west, coming over the rolling downs flanking the town, and indeed the Sunday afternoon brought steel-grey clouds and the air hung heavy with the promise of rain.
Throughout the day, Thea became increasingly jittery, pacing her small room, unable to concentrate. It was with relief that she watched the sky grow dark and listened to the sound of raindrops pelting the windowpanes. Distracted, she went through her night-time duties and then, when she judged the girls to be asleep and with little chance of waking, she zipped up her jacket, sliding a torch into one of its capacious pockets and the tin into another. The tin was heavier than it looked and it pulled the jacket awkwardly down on one side, but she ignored this and crept down the stairs.
Quietly, so as not to wake the sleeping house, she laced up her boots and eased open the front door. Almost immediately, the rain began to blow in, forming small puddles on the flagstone floor.
Time to get the thing done, and then perhaps she might finally sleep easier.
It was nearly closing time at the pubs and a faint light could be seen from some, but the high street was almost deserted. Oxleigh was practically a ghost town, lamps casting dancing shadows onto the puddled pavements. Thea pulled the drawstring on her hood tight to her scalp, put her head down and walked determinedly towards the school. The rain needled her face, stinging the exposed skin and she had to wipe her glasses several times to clear them.
Damn.
She had reached the entrance but the tall wrought-iron gates were locked. As she rattled them in frustration, she berated herself for not checking the time they were secured for the night. She flicked on her torch, using the beam to scan the gates for any other means of entry.
