by Kate Morton
The old man held open palms upon which a lifetime of hauling ropes and threading hooks had written its tale. ‘Ask me anything,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you all I know.’
As Robyn disappeared through a low doorway, Nell looked about for somewhere to sit. She settled on a green wing-backed chair by the fire, enjoying the surge of warmth as firelight yawned across her side.
Gump looked up from the pipe he was busy loading and nodded his encouragement. Apparently the floor was hers.
Nell cleared her throat and shifted her feet a little on the rug, wondering where to begin. She decided there was no point beating around the bush. ‘It’s the Mountrachet family I’m interested in.’
Gump’s match sizzled and he puffed vigorously to start his pipe.
‘I’ve been asking about in the village but it seems that no one knows anything about them.’
‘Oh they know about them all right,’ he said on a smoky exhalation. ‘They just don’t talk about them.’
Nell’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Why is that?’
‘The folk in Tregenna like a good yarn, but we’re a superstitious bunch by and large. We’ll chat happily on just about any subject you care to name, but ask about the happenings up there on the cliff and people clam up.’
‘I noticed,’ said Nell. ‘Is it because the Mountrachets were titled aristocrats? Upper class?’
Gump snorted. ‘They had money, but don’t you go talking about class.’ He leaned forward. ‘That was a title paid for by the spilled blood of innocents. Seventeen twenty-four, it was. A wild storm blew up late one afternoon, the fiercest in years. The lighthouse lost its roof and the new oil lamp flame was snuffed out as if it were little better than a candle. The moon was in hiding and the night was black as my boots.’ Pale lips tightened around his pipe. He sucked long and hard, warming to his tale. ‘Most of the local fishing boats had come in early but there was a single sloop still out in the strait, a double-master with a foreign crew.
‘The crew of that sloop never stood a chance. They say there were waves breaking halfway up the Sharpstone cliffs and she was thrown so hard against the rocks that she started to fall to pieces before she even reached the cove. There were newspaper reports and a government inquiry, but they never recovered much more than a few pieces of tattered red cedar from the hull. They blamed the local free traders, of course.’
‘Free traders?’
‘Smugglers,’ said Robyn, who had appeared with the tea tray.
‘But it wasn’t them who stripped the ship of its cargo,’ said Gump. ‘No fear. It was the family that did it, the Mountrachet family.’
Nell took a proffered cup from Robyn. ‘The Mountrachets were smugglers?’
Gump laughed a dry, whiskery laugh and took a swig of tea. ‘They were nothing so dignified as that. Smugglers do their share of liberating overtaxed items from ships that come to grief, but they also do their bit of rescuing the crews. What happened that night in the Blackhurst cove was the work of thieves. Thieves and murderers. They killed every single one of that crew, stole the cargo from her hull, then early next morning, before anyone had a chance to learn what had happened, they dragged the ship and its bodies out to sea and sank it. Made themselves a fortune: crates of pearls, and ivory, fans from China, jewellery from Spain.’
‘Over the next few years, Blackhurst underwent massive renovations.’ Robyn took up the story, perching on the faded velvet of her grandfather’s footstool. ‘I’ve just been writing about it for my “Great Houses of Cornwall” pamphlet. That’s when it acquired the third storey and a number of the garden follies. And Mr Mountrachet was given an ennoblement by the King.’
‘Amazing what a few well-chosen gifts can do.’
Nell shook her head and shifted uncomfortably. Now was not the time to mention that these murderers and thieves were her ancestors. ‘To think they got away with it.’
Robyn glanced at Gump, who cleared his throat. ‘Well now,’ he muttered. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’
Nell looked between them, confused.
‘There’s worse punishments than those doled out by the law. Mark my words, there’s worse punishments than that.’ Gump exhaled through tight lips. ‘After what happened in the cove, the family up there was cursed, every last one of them.’
Nell leaned back against her seat, disappointed. A family curse. Right when she’d thought herself on the verge of actual information.
‘Tell her about the ship, Gump,’ said Robyn, seeming to sense Nell’s deflation. ‘The black ship.’
Happy to oblige, Gump raised his volume a notch as a show of narrative commitment. ‘The family might’ve sunk that ship but they couldn’t rid themselves of her, not for long. She still appears sometimes on the horizon. Usually before or after a storm. A large black sloop, a phantom ship, stalking the cove. Haunting the descendants of those responsible.’
‘You’ve seen it? The ship?’
The old man shook his head. ‘I thought I might have once but I was mistaken, thank God.’ He leaned forward. ‘It’s an ill wind blows that ship into view. They say a person who sights the phantom ship pays penance for its loss. If you see it, it sees you. And all I know is that those who admit to having seen it attract more ill fortune than anyone should bear. The sloop’s proper name was the Jacquard, but around here we call it the Black Hearse.’
‘Blackhurst Estate,’ said Nell. ‘Not a coincidence, I take it?’
‘She’s a bright penny,’ said Gump, smiling around his pipe at Robyn. ‘A bright penny, this one. And there’s some that would agree that’s where the estate got its name.’
‘Not you?’
‘I’ve always thought it had more to do with the big black rock up there in the Blackhurst Cove. There’s a passage runs right the way through it, you know. It used to lead from the cove to somewhere on the estate and back into the village. A blessing for the smugglers, but a temperamental one at that. Something in the angles and shapes of the tunnel: if the tide rose higher than expected, a man inside the caves had little hope of survival. That rock’s been hearse to plenty of brave souls over the years. If you’ve ever looked down onto the estate beach you’ll have seen it. Monstrous jagged thing.’
Nell shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen the cove, not yet. I tried to visit the house yesterday but the front gates were locked. I’m going back tomorrow to drop a letter of introduction in the letterbox. Hopefully the owners will let me take a look. Any idea what they’re like?’
‘New people,’ said Robyn sagely. ‘Out-of-towners, talk of turning it into a hotel.’ She leaned forward. ‘They say the young woman’s a paperback writer, romances and the like. She’s very glamorous and the books are quite racy.’ Her gaze slipped sideways to her grandfather and she flushed. ‘Not that I’ve read them myself.’
‘I saw part of the property advertised in the estate agent’s office in town,’ said Nell. ‘A little house called Cliff Cottage is for sale.’
Gump laughed drily. ‘And always will be. There’s no one fool enough to buy it. Take more than a coat of paint to clear that place of all the misfortune it’s seen.’
‘What sort of misfortune?’
Gump, who had heretofore spun his stories with abounding relish, was suddenly silent, chewing over this last question. A flicker seemed to pass through his eyes. ‘That place should’ve been burned down years ago. There were things went on there that weren’t right.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Never you mind about that,’ he said, lips trembling. ‘Just you take my word for it. There’s some places can’t be made new with a fresh coat of paint.’
‘I didn’t mean to buy it,’ said Nell, surprised by his vehemence. ‘I just thought it might be a way of getting a look at the estate.’
‘No need to go through the Blackhurst estate to get a look at the cove. You can see it from the cliff top.’ He raised his pipe in the direction of the coast. ‘Take the path from the village up around the bluff and look towards S
harpstone; that’s it below you. Prettiest little cove in all of Cornwall except for that brutish rock. No sign of the blood spilled across its beach long ago.’
The smell of beef and rosemary had grown thick and Robyn fetched bowls and spoons from the kitchen. ‘You’ll stay for supper, won’t you Nell?’
‘Course she will,’ said Gump, leaning back into his chair. ‘Wouldn’t think of sending her out on a night like this one. Black as your hat out there and twice as thick.’
The stew was delicious and Nell took little convincing to have a second bowl. Afterwards, Robyn excused herself to wash the dishes, and Nell and Gump were alone again. The room was warm now, and his cheeks red. He sensed her gaze and nodded convivially.
There was something easy about William Martin’s company, something insulating about sitting in his front room. This was the power of the story weaver, Nell realised. An ability to conjure colour so that all else seemed to fade. And William Martin was a born storyteller, there was little doubt about that. Just how much of his tales to believe was another question. He had an obvious gift for spinning straw into gold, but nonetheless he was likely to be the only person she’d find who had lived through the years that interested her.
‘I wonder,’ she said, fire warming her side so that it itched pleasingly, ‘when you were younger, did you ever know Eliza Makepeace? She was a writer, the ward of Linus and Adeline Mountrachet.’
There was a perceptible pause. William’s voice was whisker-muffled. ‘Everyone knew of Eliza Makepeace.’
Nell drew breath. Finally. ‘Do you know what happened to her?’ she said, all in a rush. ‘In the end, I mean?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know that.’
A new reticence had crept into the old man’s bearing, a guardedness that had been absent until now. While the implications of this made her heart swell with hope, Nell knew she’d have to tread carefully. She didn’t want to send him into his shell, not now.
‘What about earlier, when she lived at Blackhurst? Can you tell me anything?’
‘I said I knew of her. I had no occasion to know her well, I wasn’t welcome at the big house. Those in charge up there would’ve had something to say about that.’
Nell persisted. ‘From what I can gather, Eliza was last seen in London in late 1913. She was with a small girl, Ivory Walker, who was almost four years old. Rose Mountrachet’s daughter. Can you think of any reason, any reason at all, why Eliza might have been planning a trip to Australia with someone else’s child?’
‘No.’
‘Any idea why the Mountrachet family might have told people their granddaughter was dead when she was very much alive?’
The reed of his voice split. ‘No.’
‘So you knew that Ivory was alive despite contrary reports?’
The fire crackled. ‘I didn’t know that, because it isn’t so. That child died of scarlet fever.’
‘Yes, I know that’s what was said at the time.’ Nell’s face was warm, her head throbbing. ‘I also know that it’s not true.’
‘How would you know a thing like that?’
‘Because I was that child.’ Nell’s voice cracked. ‘I arrived in Australia when I was four. Was put on a boat by Eliza Makepeace when everyone thought that I was dead and no one seems to be able to tell me why.’
William’s expression was difficult to interpret. He seemed about to answer but didn’t.
Instead, he rose, stretched out his arms so that his belly thrust forward. ‘I’m tired,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s about time I went up to my bed.’ He called out, ‘Robyn?’ And again, louder, ‘Robyn!’
‘Gump?’ Robyn returned from the kitchen, tea towel in hand. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m turning in.’ He started for the narrow stairs that curved an exit path from the room.
‘You don’t want another cup of tea? We were having such a nice time.’
William placed his hand on Robyn’s shoulder as he passed her. ‘Put the wood in the hole on your way out, won’t you my girl. We don’t want the mist settling inside.’
As bewilderment widened Robyn’s eyes, Nell fetched her own coat. ‘I should go.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Robyn. ‘I don’t know what’s come over him. He’s old, he gets tired . . .’
‘Of course.’ Nell finished doing up her buttons. She knew she should apologise, it was her fault after all that the old man had been upset, and yet she couldn’t. Disappointment sat like a wedge of lemon in her throat. ‘Thank you for your time,’ she managed to say, stepping out of the front door and into the oppressive damp.
Nell glanced back when she reached the bottom of the hill and saw that Robyn was still watching. She raised an arm to wave when the other woman did so.
William Martin may have been old and tired, but there was more to his sudden departure than that. Nell ought to know, she had held onto her own thorny secret long enough to recognise a fellow sufferer. William knew more than he was letting on and Nell’s need to uncover the truth outranked her respect for his privacy.
She pressed her lips together and bowed her head against the cold. Determined to convince him into telling her all he knew.
26
Blackhurst Manor, 1900
Eliza was right: the name ‘Rose’ was well suited to a fairytale princess, and certainly Rose Mountrachet enjoyed the uncommon privilege and beauty befitting the part. Sadly though, for little Rose, the first eleven years of life had been anything but a fairy story.
‘Open wide.’ Dr Matthews plucked a reedy paddle from his leather bag and flattened Rose’s tongue. He leaned forward to peer down her throat, his face so close that she was granted an unwelcome opportunity to conduct reciprocal inspection of his nasal hairs. ‘Hmmm,’ he said, setting the hairs to quivering.
Rose coughed weakly as the retracting paddle scraped her throat.
‘Well, Doctor?’ Mamma stepped from the shadow, tapered fingers pale against her deep blue dress.
Dr Matthews stood to full height. ‘You did well to call, Lady Mountrachet. There is indeed an inflammation.’
Mamma sighed. ‘I thought as much. You have a preparation, Doctor?’
As Dr Matthews outlined his recommended mode of treatment, Rose turned her head to the side and closed her eyes. Yawned lightly. For as long as she could remember, she’d known she wasn’t long for this world.
Sometimes, in weaker moments, Rose allowed herself to imagine what life might be like if she didn’t know her end, if the future stretched before her indefinitely, a long road with twists and turns she couldn’t anticipate. With milestones that might include a society debut, a husband, children. A grand home of her own with which to impress other ladies. For oh, if she were honest, how earnestly she longed for such a life.
She didn’t let herself imagine this too often though. What use was there in lamenting? Instead, she waited, convalesced, worked on her scrapbook. Read, when she was able, of places she’d never see, and facts she’d never use, in conversations she’d never have. Waiting for the next inevitable episode that brought her closer to The End, hoping that the next ailment might be a little more interesting than the last. Something with less pain and more reward. Like the time she’d swallowed Mamma’s thimble.
She hadn’t meant to, of course. If it hadn’t been so shiny, so pretty in its silver acorn holder, she wouldn’t have thought to touch it. But it had and she did. What eight year old would have done differently? She’d been trying to balance it on the tip of her tongue, somewhat like the clown in her Meggendorfer Circus book, the one who balanced the red ball on his silly pointed nose. Inadvisable certainly, but she’d only been a child, and besides, had been performing the feat for some months without mishap.
The thimble episode had turned out pretty well by all accounts. The doctor had been called immediately, a new young physician who’d only recently taken over the village practice. He’d poked and prodded and done what doctors do, before making quivering suggestion that a certain new
diagnostic tool might be of some use. By taking a photographic exposure he’d be able to look right within Rose’s stomach without so much as lifting a scalpel. Everyone had been pleased with this suggestion: Father, whose skill with a camera meant he was called upon to take the modern exposure; Dr Matthews, because he was able to publish the photographs in a special journal called the Lancet; and Mamma, because the publication sent a ripple of excitement through her society circles.
As for Rose, the thimble was passed (most indecorously) some forty-eight hours later and she was able to bask in the certain knowledge that she’d finally managed to please Father, if only briefly. Not that he said as much, that was not his way, but Rose was perspicacious when it came to recognising the moods of her parents (if not yet their divining causes). And Father’s pleasure had made Rose’s own spirits rise as high and as light as one of Cook’s soufflés.
‘With your permission, Lady Mountrachet, I’ll finish my examination.’
Rose sighed as Dr Matthews lifted her nightgown to expose her stomach. She closed her eyes tighter as cold fingers pressed on her skin, and she thought about her scrapbook. Mamma had arranged for a periodical from London with pictures of the latest bridal fashions and, using lace and ribbons from her craft box, Rose was decorating the scrapbook page beautifully. Her bride was coming along splendidly: a veil of Belgian lace, little seed pearls glued around the rim, pressed flowers for her bouquet. The groom was rather a different matter: Rose didn’t know much about gentlemen. (And neither should she. It wouldn’t be proper for a young lady to know such things.) But it seemed to Rose that the specifics of the groom were of little importance, as long as the bride was pretty and pure.
‘All looks satisfactory,’ said Dr Matthews, patting Rose’s nightgown back into place. ‘Fortunately the infection is not general. Might I suggest though, Lady Mountrachet, that I speak with you further regarding the best possible treatment?’
