The Silk House : A Novel (2020)

by Nunn, Kayte

  ‘What?’ he roared, his ill temper ignited once more. ‘How dare you speak to me about my daughter? It is no business of yours. She is with God, as is my wife. Be gone from my sight.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ she said, backing away from him. ‘Forgive me; I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

  Rowan knew that he was lying, but she had no choice but to do as she was bid.

  In late September, as the leaves had begun to turn and the chill of winter threaded the air, Patrick dismissed Jeremiah. ‘In truth, we no longer have the custom,’ he said, stating what was obvious to them both. Dust gathered on empty shelves where fabric was once displayed and the house grew silent, although sometimes – if she listened hard enough – Rowan fancied she could hear the melancholy notes of a pianoforte. The lullaby her mother had once sung. She swiftly dismissed such imaginings, for there was no one to play the instrument now.

  Tommy had stopped calling to deliver meat, for the master ate so little that it was hardly needed, but one afternoon, as Rowan returned from the fields to the south of the town – she avoided the river now – she came upon him in the street. She nodded to him as he passed, not expecting him to stop, especially after their last encounter. Indeed, the entire town now did its best to avoid the remaining inhabitants of the merchant’s house.

  ‘Rowan,’ he called, when she was several paces past him.

  She stopped and turned around, watching as he walked towards her.

  ‘How are you keeping?’ he gave her a tentative smile.

  ‘Well enough.’ She made as to move on.

  ‘Can we not be friends again?’ he asked.

  Rowan felt a momentary flicker of hope, as if the world were not all ashes. ‘I’m not certain that is a wise idea,’ she said. ‘I am not a person many wish to have as a friend.’

  He pulled his cap from his head and twisted it nervously in his hands. ‘I care not what others think.’

  She returned his smile. ‘That is good to hear.’

  ‘Actually, perhaps we might be more than friends?’ He hesitated, as if steeling himself for disappointment, then continued on. ‘May I court you, Rowan Caswell?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she blurted, taken by surprise at the bluntness of his words. ‘After everything that has happened?’

  ‘I would not ask if I weren’t.’

  ‘Well then, I should like that, Tommy Dean,’ she replied. ‘Very much.’

  FORTY-TWO

  Now

  ‘Mr Battle.’ Thea stood in front of the porter, having raced over to the school a week later at a summons from the headmaster.

  ‘Miss Rust.’

  Thea smiled to see his customary expression of faint disdain. He must be feeling better. ‘Glad to see you back,’ she said. ‘I have an appointment with the headmaster.’

  He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  ‘He asked to see me rather urgently,’ she added.

  ‘One moment.’ He picked up a phone receiver and murmured something unintelligible into it before eventually replacing it and nodding at her.

  Thea took it as a sign to proceed and continued past him.

  ‘We will be moving you and the girls as soon as we can arrange it,’ said Dr Fox when she entered his office.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Thea’s thoughts were scattered. It was not what she had been expecting to hear.

  ‘There is an issue … with the groundwater at Silk House. A ruptured pipe is apparently what caused the fish and the plants to die. There is only a slight risk to you and the girls, but nonetheless I feel it prudent to keep you all away from the area until the problem is resolved, which may take quite some time. We will be clearing George House, distributing those boys among the other houses. It should be ready late next week, but in the meantime, the garden is to be strictly out of bounds to all students and staff.’

  ‘I see. Of course, headmaster.’ She was relieved that he had apparently moved on from her encounter with Mr Battle, something he had upbraided her for the day after the event.

  ‘Mr Battle will ensure that you are informed at every step.’

  As she left the headmaster’s office, she was pleased to see Claire, her bright clothes a splash of colour against the grey stone buildings. ‘We’re moving,’ she said as she caught up with her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The girls and I are leaving Silk House. There’s a problem with the plumbing apparently, that’s what caused the fish to die.’ Thea explained the rest of the headmaster’s solution.

  Claire wrapped an arm around Thea’s shoulders and squeezed her. ‘I think that will be for the best. It was never ideal having the girls so far from the main school.’

  ‘But I’m not actually sure I want to leave Silk House quite yet. I’m convinced there is something there that needs resolving.’

  ‘What exactly?’ Claire was puzzled.

  ‘I wish I knew.’ Despite Fiona’s cleansing, Thea still felt uneasy there, especially when she was on the top floor, in her room or her study. Now she only had a few days left to get to the bottom of it.

  ‘Don’t overthink things, I say,’ Claire tried to reassure her. ‘Very soon it won’t be your problem.’

  But Thea knew she wouldn’t be able to let it go that easily. On her way to classes, she called in at the library and was amused to find Mr Dickens almost completely obscured, only the tuft of his hair showing above a stack of books.

  ‘Ah, Miss Rust!’ He seemed delighted to see her, and Thea smiled to see that he sported yet another purple flower pinned to his lapel, this one a calla lily. He must have a hothouse, she mused, for even she knew that such things didn’t normally bloom in winter.

  ‘I have something to show you,’ he said, shuffling the stacks of books and extricating himself from his desk. He led her towards the back of the library, turning left at the last moment and opening a small door that might have led to a cupboard but in fact turned out to be a tiny room, its shelves lined with hundreds of boxes. The air was dry and cold and she wrapped her arms about herself as he ushered her in. ‘This is where we keep some of the oldest documents relating to the college – details of its history, and deeds of establishment and so on.’

  Thea nodded, now mystified.

  ‘When you asked about information on Silk House, I didn’t think we had much more than that one book, but even so I thought I’d see if there was anything from around the time it was built.’ He pulled out an archive box inscribed with the dates 1750–1850. ‘There’s not a lot – obviously, as it was two hundred and fifty years ago and a hundred-odd years before the college was founded. The present headmaster’s house was once a coaching inn.’

  Of course. She knew that the town had prospered in the eighteenth century, due to its situation on the Bath Road.

  ‘Somewhat miraculously, we have a few items of interest from this time.’ With a flourish that would have impressed a magician, Mr Dickens opened the box, and Thea peered inside, seeing a couple of old books sitting on top of what looked to be a stack of ledgers. ‘Remarkable that these have survived,’ he added, handing the first book to Thea.

  ‘Tom Jones,’ Thea said, checking the spine. ‘If this is a first edition Fielding, it’s probably worth a fortune.’ Her mouth hung open in shock.

  ‘I know – don’t tell anyone.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘But that’s not all.’ He pulled out the ledgers and placed them precariously on a pile of folders as Thea waited. ‘This,’ he said, reaching into the bottom of the box and pulling out a painted portrait miniature. ‘Caroline Hollander. Wife of Patrick Hollander, the first residents of Silk House. I took the liberty of doing a little research myself. It appears that she died in tragic circumstances.’

  ‘I know, it’s mentioned in the book. It says she fell into the millpond. The water soaked her gown – it would have been as heavy as lead – and, of course, in those days she would never have learned to swim,’ she said. ‘There was a rumour that her husband pushed her, but he was never openly accused. The tragedy broke him
, ruined his life and eventually his business.’

  ‘She was only twenty-four,’ he said.

  ‘And pregnant,’ she added.

  When Thea returned to the house, it was late afternoon and the place was deserted. She climbed the stairs to her study.

  There they were once more. The house had been vacuumed that morning – the cleaners came twice a week – but again, the wretched piles of dirt. She knew now that no amount of fumigation would stop them appearing. After her discussion with Mr Dickens she had begun to form an idea as to their significance. If she and the girls were to move out next week, she couldn’t wait any longer to solve the mystery. She would do it the best way she knew – by taking matters into her own hands and going in search of concrete evidence. It was time to stop being afraid of what she might find.

  She walked over to the far end of the room, where the wall met the floorboards, and where it bowed slightly when she leaned on it. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and thumbed through the photos, finding the close-up of the plans from the records office, and zoomed in on the attic rooms. The ink was faint but she could make out the tracing of a small cupboard, a hidey hole of some sort perhaps. There was something in there, she felt sure of it.

  She pressed the wall again, saw a crack form at both edges. She grabbed a metal ruler from her desk and slid the sharp edge along the crack, deepening it. Unlike the rest of the room, which was brick finished with lime plaster, it looked as if, here, a large rectangle of board had been placed over the brickwork. As she pushed, it separated from the wall with a loud crack, and she used the ruler to help slide it out of the way. She blinked and coughed as a shower of dust rained down.

  A few centimetres behind the board was a brick wall.

  FORTY-THREE

  July 1790, Oxleigh

  Twenty years after she last walked out of the merchant’s house, Rowan Dean – Rowan Caswell as she once was – stood on the doorstep. The sign of the shears no longer hung above the lintel, and dust clouded the once sparkling windows.

  ‘I can only let you in for a few minutes,’ said the shopkeeper next door who’d come to open up for her. ‘As a favour to Mr Dean. Why’d you want to see the place anyway?’

  ‘I worked here once. I wanted to make a final farewell, I suppose. Before it changes.’ She had heard a rumour that an ostler wished to buy it, for the demand for inns in the town showed no sign of abating as the fashionable class stopped off on their way to take the waters at Bath.

  The last time she had seen Patrick Hollander, late the year before, he had been emerging from The Seven Stars and she had hardly recognised him. She had been shocked by his staggering gait and filthy clothes. Rumour had it that he had never recovered from the loss of his wife. He was far from the young dandy she had encountered on the village green more than two decades before but, she supposed, she too had changed. She was a rounder woman now, not the skinny maid she had once been. Three children and the benefits of being a butcher’s wife had added padding to her frame, although she wore it well. This particular day she had on a gown woven with a pattern of tiny daisies – feverfew, one of her favourite healing flowers, and a pattern from the hand of Mary-Louise Stephenson, now London’s most noted silk designer. She thought of the beautiful silks that had once been sold in the merchant’s house, how she had coveted the feel of them, dreaming of wearing something so beautiful, never imagining such a desire would come true. It seemed such a long time ago now.

  She had wed Tommy the summer after the tragedy, and it was with few misgivings that she gave up her position tending to Mr Hollander to move into a small cottage on the edge of the town and begin her married life. The merchant’s house had become a dark place, with shadows gathering in every corner, and she had not been able to leave it fast enough. Often a cold shiver had passed right through her, though the windows were tightly fastened and there was no breeze to be had. She sometimes imagined she felt Alice in bed next to her at night, though she knew it was a foolish notion. She hadn’t slept easy until the night of her marriage, under a different roof, and though she fully expected it, no word ever came of the discovery of the body of a young maid.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, unlocking the front door and pushing it open. Rowan covered her mouth as she stepped inside, for the air was stuffy and smelled sourly of unwashed clothes and long-abandoned chamber-pots. The walls were yellowed by smoke and the rugs that once lay upon the floors were nowhere to be seen. The fine furniture, the lavishly upholstered chaises, the rich silk curtains and oak sideboards were also gone.

  Rowan took her time, moving from room to room, as memories of her days at the house came rushing back. She had been happy to begin with, pleased to be well treated, and to earn her own money for the first time, had taken pride in her work and had loved being surrounded by such beautiful silk, such vibrant colours. But as she entered her former mistress’s chamber, other memories flooded back and she recalled the blood and the screams and then the deathly quiet that descended upon the house. Rowan sat upon the bed and closed her eyes. Though her marriage was a happy one, and her children brought her much joy, she had remained uneasy about the events at the merchant’s house. She had often lain awake troubled by guilt that she had unwittingly set in motion the events that led to her mistress’s death. Of course, there were others who bore more of the blame, she knew that, but she had not been able to make peace with herself entirely.

  As she sat, the melancholy notes of a lullaby floated into the room. Her eyes still closed, she fancied she felt a presence sitting beside her. Her mistress. She was trying to tell her something. Holding her breath, Rowan strained to make sense of the feeling. Then, the flash of a picture in her mind’s eye. It was the same vision of a pale, waxy infant she’d had many years before, but this time there was a tiny coffin, a silver breastplate. She knew then what her mistress required of her.

  Rowan opened her eyes at the sound of footsteps on the oak staircase.

  ‘You really must leave now.’

  It was the shopkeeper.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, rising from the bed and glancing about her one last time. She would have to return, though she knew not when, for she must see that the coffin was properly buried. She had to find a way to put things to rest.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Now

  Solid brick. Great. Thea sat for a moment, then ran her fingers along the surface. Some of the bricks were a different colour from the others, and it appeared that they had never been mortared. As she pressed against them, she felt a slight movement, a few millimetres, but enough to set her thinking.

  She went back to her bedroom and grabbed one of the hockey sticks, an old one, not her favourite – obviously, as the girls would say.

  Her heart had begun to thump in her chest and her hands were tense on the strapping, but a few well-placed thwacks was all it took for Thea to push several of the bricks through into the cavity behind. A few more and she had cleared a space big enough for her to squeeze her head through. She didn’t dare clear a larger hole, didn’t know what it might do to the rest of the wall. She used the torch on her phone to shine a light into the space. The air was thick with dust from her efforts and she had to wait a few moments for it to settle. Then she looked again, leaning through the hole she had made, the hand holding her phone stretched out in front of her.

  Cobwebs laced the air and she checked for spiders, but saw none. At first the space seemed to be empty, but then she saw something that made her jolt against the bricks and drop her phone into the cavity. The torch continued to shine, however, illuminating a small box, the shape of which meant only one thing.

  She withdrew from the space, sat back on her heels and contemplated the hole. Then she picked up her hockey stick again and – more carefully this time – dislodged a couple more of the bricks, widening the opening until it was large enough for her to reach in and retrieve the box.

  It was heavier than it looked and she grimaced as the rough edge of one of the bric
ks scraped along her arm when she pulled it through the hole. The wood splintered, crumbled and began to disintegrate beneath her fingers; underneath she could feel cold metal.

  Lead. Of course. Coffins were often lined with lead in earlier times.

  A small plaque sat on the top. A breastplate covered in dust, dark and tarnished, but as she rubbed at it, a faint script emerged.

  Diana Grace Hollander. July 1769.

  It had to be Caroline’s daughter – the date pretty much confirmed it.

  She placed the coffin on the floor in front of her and contemplated the fact that it had quite possibly lain there undisturbed for two hundred and fifty years. As a historian, she was thrilled by the discovery: this was the type of artefact any archaeologist would salivate over. But, though she knew infant mortality was all too common in the eighteenth century, it nonetheless pierced her to see the evidence of such a pitifully short life. What could have happened for the coffin – an expensive one, no less – to be bricked away in the house and not buried in consecrated ground? She was well aware she might never find out.

  The correct course of action would be to inform the headmaster, but something held her back. She knew how much the school valued its privacy, and a discovery such as this would have the media swarming. Eventually, reluctantly, she lifted the coffin back through the opening, reaching forward to grab her phone as she did so. She stacked the removed bricks to one side, replaced the plasterboard so that it covered the hole she had made and left the room.

  A decision of this weight needed some consideration.

  When Thea woke up the next morning, after a fitful night plagued by dreams of row upon row of babies all wrapped up like Egyptian mummies, only their faces showing, black holes for eyes, she knew what should be done. And there was only one person she could confide in, who might possibly be able to help.