by Kate Morton
Cassandra leaned back into the cushions of her armchair and watched the flames flickering in the grate. People were gathered in all corners of the hotel lounge—some playing board games, others reading or eating—and the room was dense with the comforting low voices of the warm and dry.
Julia dropped a spoonful of cream onto her jam-laden scone. ‘So why the sudden interest in the cottage wall?’
Cassandra’s fingers flattened warm around her mug. ‘Nell believed that if she found out where Eliza went in 1909, she’d discover the answer to her own mystery.’
‘But what’s that got to do with the wall?’
‘I don’t know, maybe nothing. But something in Rose’s scrapbook got me thinking.’
‘Which bit?’
‘She makes an entry in April 1909 that seems to link Eliza’s trip with the building of the wall.’
Julia licked cream from her fingertip. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘She writes that bit about being careful because when there’s a lot to gain, there’s also a lot to lose.’
‘Exactly. I just wish I knew what she meant.’
Julia bit her lip. ‘How rude of her not to elaborate for the benefit of those of us who’d be reading over her shoulder some ninety years later!’
Cassandra smiled absently, played with a thread coming loose from the chair’s arm. ‘Why would she have said that, though? What was there to gain, what was she so worried about losing? And what does the security of the cottage have to do with any of it?’
Julia took a bite of her scone and chewed it slowly, thoughtfully. She patted her lips with a hotel serviette. ‘Rose was pregnant at the time, right?’
‘According to that entry in the scrapbook.’
‘So maybe it was hormones. That can happen, can’t it? Women get all emotional and such? Maybe she was missing Eliza and worried that the cottage would be robbed or vandalised. Maybe she felt responsible. The two girls were still close at that point.’
Cassandra thought about this. Pregnancy could account for some pretty crazy mood swings, but was it enough of an answer? Even allowing for a hormonal narrator, there was something curious about the entry. What was happening at the cottage that made Rose feel so vulnerable?
‘They say it’s going to clear up tomorrow,’ said Julia, laying her knife across a crumb-laden plate. She leaned back into her armchair, pulled the curtain edge aside and gazed into the misty glare. ‘I suppose you’ll be back at work in the cottage?’
‘Actually, no. I’ve got a friend coming to stay.’
‘Here at the hotel?’
Cassandra nodded.
‘Lovely! You just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’
Julia was right, by Monday afternoon the mist had finally begun to lift and a tremulous sun promised to break through the clouds. Cassandra was waiting in the lounge when Ruby’s car pulled into the car park outside. She smiled when she saw the little white hatchback, packed up the scrapbooks and hurried into the foyer.
‘Phew!’ Ruby took a step inside and dropped her bags. Then she pulled off her rain hat and shook her head. ‘Talk about a good old Cornish welcome! Not a drop of rain and I’m still soaking wet.’ She stopped still and stared at Cassandra. ‘Well now, look at you!’
‘What?’ Cassandra patted her hair down. ‘What’s the matter with me?’
Ruby grinned so that her eyes pleated at the corners. ‘Nothing at all, that’s what I bloody well mean. You look fabulous.’
‘Oh. Well thanks.’
‘The Cornish air must agree with you, you’re hardly the same girl I met at Heathrow.’
Cassandra started to laugh, surprising Samantha, who was eavesdropping from the main desk. ‘It’s really good to see you, Ruby,’ she said, picking up one of the bags. ‘Let’s get rid of these and go for a walk, check out the cove after all this rain.’
Cassandra closed her eyes, tilted her face skyward and let the sea breeze tickle her eyelids. Gulls engaged in conversation further along the beach, an insect flew close by her ear, gentle waves lapped rhythmically against the coast. She felt an enormous sense of calm descend as she matched her breath to that of the sea: in and out, in and out, in and out. The recent rain had stirred up the ocean brine and the strong smell laced the wind. She opened her eyes and looked slowly about the cove. The line of ancient trees atop the ridge, the black rock at the cove’s end, the tall grassy hills that hid her cottage. She exhaled; deep pleasure.
‘I feel just like I’ve stumbled into Five Go to Smugglers’ Top,’ called Ruby from further along the beach. ‘I keep expecting Timmy the dog to come running down the sand with a message-filled bottle in his mouth—’ her eyes widened—‘or a human bone; some nefarious thing he’s dug up!’
Cassandra smiled. ‘I used to love that book.’ She started walking along the pebbles towards Ruby and the black rock. ‘When I was a kid, reading it on hot Brisbane days, I’d have given anything to be growing up on a foggy coast with smugglers’ caves.’
When they reached the end of the beach where pebbles met grass, the steep coastal hill that bounded the cove rose before them.
‘Good lord,’ said Ruby, craning to see the top. ‘You actually intend for us to climb that, don’t you?’
‘It’s not as steep as it looks, I promise.’
Time and traffic had worn a narrow path, barely visible amongst the long silvery grasses and little yellow flowers, and they went slowly, stopping every so often for Ruby to catch her breath.
Cassandra relished the clear, rain-stirred air. The higher they got, the cooler it became. Each swirl of breeze was flecked with moisture, swept from the sea to pepper their faces. As she neared the top, Cassandra reached out to grasp the long pale strands of grass, felt them slide through her closed hands. ‘Nearly there,’ she called back to Ruby. ‘It’s just over this crest.’
‘I feel like a von Trapp,’ Ruby said between puffs. ‘But fatter, older, and with absolutely no energy for singing.’
Cassandra reached the summit. Above her, thin clouds fleeted across the sky, chased by strong autumn winds. She wandered towards the cliff edge and looked out across the broad and moody sea.
Ruby’s voice from behind. ‘Oh thank god. I’m alive.’ She was standing with her hands on her knees, catching her breath. ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. I was not confident this moment would ever arrive.’
She righted herself, shifted her hands to the small of her back and came to stand by Cassandra. Her expression lightened as her eyes scanned the horizon.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Cassandra.
Ruby was shaking her head. ‘It’s amazing. This is what birds must feel like when they’re sitting in their nests.’ She took a step back from the cliff edge. ‘Except possibly a little more secure, given they have wings in the event of a fall.’
‘The cottage used to be a lookout. Back in the days of the smugglers.’
Ruby nodded. ‘I can believe that well enough. Not much you wouldn’t see from up here.’ She turned, expecting to catch sight of the cottage. Frowned. ‘Shame about that great big wall. It must block a lot of the view.’
‘Yeah, from downstairs it does. But it wasn’t always there, it went up in 1909.’
Ruby wandered over towards the gate. ‘Why on earth would anyone wall it up like that?’
‘Security.’
‘Against what?’
Cassandra followed Ruby. ‘Believe me, I’d love to know.’ She pushed open the creaky iron gate.
‘Friendly.’ Ruby pointed at the sign threatening trespassers.
Cassandra smiled thoughtfully. Keep out or the risk be all yours. She had passed by the sign so often in recent weeks that she’d stopped seeing it. Now, in tandem with Rose’s scrapbook entry, the words took on new significance.
‘Come on, Cass.’ Ruby was standing at the other end of the path by the cottage door, stamping her little feet. ‘I went along with the hike with barely a complaint, surely you don’t expect me to scale th
e walls and find a window to climb through?’
Cassandra smiled and held up the brass key. ‘Never fear. No more physical challenges. Not for today, anyway. We’ll save the hidden garden for tomorrow.’ She inserted the key in the lock and turned it to the left with a clunk, then pushed open the door.
Ruby stepped across the threshold and made her way along the hall towards the kitchen doorway. It was much lighter inside now that Cassandra and Christian had cleared the windowpanes of creepers and washed a century of grime from the glass.
‘Oh my,’ Ruby whispered, eyes wide as she took in the kitchen, ‘it’s unspoiled!’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘No one’s destroyed it under the guise of modernisation. What an incredibly rare find.’ She turned to Cassandra. ‘It has a wonderful feel about it, doesn’t it? Enveloping, warm somehow. I can almost feel the ghosts of the past moving about among us.’
Cassandra smiled. She had known Ruby would feel it too. ‘I’m so glad you could come, Ruby.’
‘I wouldn’t have missed it,’ she said, crossing the room. ‘Grey’s just about taken to wearing earplugs when we meet, he’s so bloody sick of my talking about your Cornish cottage. Plus I had business in Polperro so the whole thing couldn’t have worked out better.’ Ruby leaned against the rocking chair to peer through the front window. ‘Is that a pond out there?’
‘Yeah, just a little one.’
‘Cute statue, wonder if he’s cold?’ She let go of the rocking chair so that it was set in gentle motion. The treads squeaked softly against the floorboards. Ruby continued her inspection of the room, running her fingers lightly along the rim of the range shelf.
‘What was your business in Polperro?’ Cassandra sat cross-legged on the kitchen table.
‘My exhibition ended last week and I was returning the Nathaniel Walker sketches to their owner. Just about broke my heart to part with them, I can tell you.’
‘No way she’d consider giving them to the museum on permanent loan?’
‘That’d be nice.’ Ruby’s head had disappeared into the bricked range alcove and her voice was muffled. ‘Perhaps you can sweet talk her for me.’
‘Me? I’ve never met her.’
‘Well not yet, of course you haven’t. But I mentioned you to her when I was there. Told her all about your grandma being related to the Mountrachets, having been born here at Blackhurst, how she came back and bought the cottage. Clara was most interested.’
‘Really? Why would she care?’
Ruby stood up, bumping her head on the range shelf. ‘Bugger,’ she rubbed the spot furiously. ‘Always the bloody head.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. High pain threshold.’ She stopped rubbing, blinked her eyes clear. ‘Clara’s mum used to work at Blackhurst remember, as a domestic? Mary, the one who ended up making black puddings with her butcher husband?’
‘Yeah, I remember now. So how did you know Clara was interested in Nell? What did she say?’
Ruby resumed her inspection of the range, opening the grate door. ‘She said there was something she wanted to talk to you about. Something her mum had told her before she died.’
The skin on Cassandra’s neck prickled. ‘What was it? Did she say anything else?’
‘Not to me, and don’t go getting too excited. Knowing the reverence in which she held her old mum, it may well be she thinks you’ll be pleased to learn that Mary spent the best years of her life in service at the grand old house. Or that Rose once paid her a compliment on her silver polishing.’ Ruby closed the grate door, turned towards Cassandra. ‘I don’t suppose the range still works?’
‘It does, actually. We couldn’t believe it.’
‘We?’
‘Christian and I.’
‘Who’s Christian?’
Cassandra ran her fingertips along the table’s rim. ‘Oh, a friend. Someone who’s been helping with the clean-up.’
Ruby’s brows arched. ‘A friend, huh?’
‘Yeah.’ Cassandra shrugged. Tried to seem nonchalant.
Ruby smiled knowingly. ‘Nice to have friends.’ She made her way to the back of the kitchen, past the window with the broken pane, to the antique spinning wheel. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll get to meet him?’ She reached out and turned the wheel.
‘Careful,’ said Cassandra. ‘Don’t prick your finger.’
‘No indeed.’ Ruby let her fingers skim the top of the turning wheel. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for putting us both to sleep for a hundred years.’ She bit her bottom lip, eyes twinkled. ‘Though it would give your friend an opportunity to rescue us.’
Cassandra felt her cheeks flush. She pretended casualness while Ruby took in the exposed beams of the ceiling, the blue and white tiles around the stove, the wide floorboards. ‘So,’ she said finally, ‘what do you think?’
Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘You know what I think, Cass, I’m jealous as hell! It’s fabulous!’ She came to lean against the table. ‘Still planning to sell it?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘You’re stronger than I am.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t be able to part with it.’
From nowhere, a flash of possessive pride. Cassandra quelled it. ‘I have to. I can’t just leave it sitting here. The maintenance would be too much, especially with me all the way on the other side of the world.’
‘You could keep it as a holiday house, rent it out when you’re not using it. Then we’ll always have somewhere to stay when we need some seaside.’ She laughed. ‘That is, you’ll have somewhere to stay.’ She nudged Cassandra with her shoulder. ‘Come on, show me what’s upstairs. I’ll bet there’s a killer view.’
Cassandra led the way up the narrow stairs, and when they reached the bedroom Ruby leaned against the windowsill. ‘Oh Cass,’ she said, as the wind plucked white tips on the surface of the sea, ‘you’d have people lined up to holiday here. It’s unspoiled, close enough to the village for supplies, far enough away to feel private. It must be glorious at sunset, and then at night when the distant lights of the fishing boats sparkle like little stars.’
Ruby’s comments both excited and frightened Cassandra, for she had given voice to Cassandra’s secret wish, a sentiment she hadn’t even realised she felt until she’d heard it expressed by someone else. She did want to keep the cottage, no matter that she knew the sensible thing was to sell it. The atmosphere of the place had made its way beneath her skin. There was its connection to Nell, but there was something more. A sense that all was well when she was in the cottage and its garden. Well with the world, and well within herself. She felt whole and solid for the first time in ten years. Like a circle complete, a thought without dark edges.
‘Oh my god!’ Ruby turned and clutched Cassandra’s wrist.
‘What!’ Cassandra’s stomach lurched. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ve just had the most brilliant idea.’ She swallowed, motioned with her hand as she caught her breath. ‘A sleep over,’ she squealed finally. ‘You and me, tonight, here in the cottage!’
Cassandra had already been to the market and was leaving the hardware shop with a cardboard box full of candles and matches, when she bumped into Christian. It had been three days since they’d had supper at the pub—there’d been far too much rain to even contemplate returning to the hidden garden over the weekend—and she hadn’t seen or spoken to him since. She felt oddly nervous, could feel her cheeks flushing.
‘Going camping?’
‘Sort of. A friend has come to visit and wants to spend a night in the cottage.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t let the ghosts bite.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Or the rats.’ He gave a lopsided smile.
She smiled too, then pressed her lips together. The silence drew out like a rubber band, threatened to snap back. She started shyly: ‘Hey, you know . . . You could come up and have a bite of dinner with us? Nothing fancy but it’ll be fun; if you�
��re free, I mean? I know Ruby would love to meet you.’ Cassandra flushed and cursed the thread of query that had lifted the end of her sentences. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she said again.
He nodded, seemed to be considering. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sure. Sounds good.’
‘Great.’ Cassandra felt a ripple beneath her skin. ‘Seven o’clock? And no need to bring anything—as you can see, I’m well stocked.’
‘Oh, hey, give me that.’ Christian took Cassandra’s cardboard box. She shifted the handles of her plastic grocery bag from around her wrist and scratched the red imprints they’d made. ‘I’ll give you a lift up the cliff walk,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to put you out.’
‘You’re not. I was on my way to see you anyway, about Rose and her marks.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t find anything else in the scrap—’ ‘It doesn’t matter, I know what they were and I know how she got them.’ He gestured towards his car. ‘Come on, we can talk while I drive.’
Christian manoeuvred his car out of the tight parking spot by the water’s edge and drove along the main street.
‘So what is it?’ said Cassandra. ‘What did you find?’
The windows had fogged up and Christian reached out to wipe the windscreen with his palm. ‘When you were telling me about Rose the other day there was something familiar. It was the doctor’s name, Ebenezer Matthews. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d heard it, then early Saturday morning it came to me. At university I took a course on medical ethics, and as part of the assessment we had to write a paper on historical uses of new technologies.’
He slowed the car at a T-intersection and fiddled with the heating. ‘Sorry, it plays up sometimes. Should be warm in a minute.’ He pushed the dial from blue to red, indicated left and started up the steep cliff road. ‘One of the benefits of living back home is that I’ve got ready access to the boxes my life was packed into when my stepmum turned my room into a gym.’
