by Kate Morton
Eliza already had her ticket, booked under a false name. Superstitious, but when time had come to make the reservation she had been possessed, suddenly, by an overwhelming sensation that a clean break required a new name. She didn’t want to leave an imprint of herself at the booking office, a path between this world and that. So she had used a pseudonym. A stroke of luck, as it turned out.
For they would come looking. Eliza knew too much about the origins of Rose’s child for Aunt Adeline to let her slip so easily away. She must be prepared to hide. She would find an inn near the port, somewhere that would rent a room to a poor widow and her child, on their way to join family in the New World. Was it possible, she wondered, to purchase a ticket for the child at such short notice? Or would she find a way to board the girl without drawing attention to her?
Eliza looked across at the scrap of a child, slumbering in the corner of the train carriage. So vulnerable. She reached out slowly and stroked her cheek. Withdrew as the girl flinched, wrinkled her little nose and nestled her head further into the carriage corner. Ridiculous though it was, Eliza could see some of Rose in the child, in Ivory; Rose as a girl, when Eliza had first known her.
The child would ask after her mother and father, and Eliza would tell her one day. Though which words she would find to explain she wasn’t sure. She noticed that the fairy story that might have done so for her was no longer in the little girl’s collection. Someone had removed it. Nathaniel, Eliza suspected. Both Rose and Aunt Adeline would have destroyed the whole book; only Nathaniel would pluck out the one story in which he was implicated, yet preserve the rest.
She would wait to contact the Swindells until the very last, for though Eliza couldn’t see how they might pose a threat, she knew better than to be too trusting. If an opportunity to profit was glimpsed, the Swindells would seize upon it. Eliza had considered at one point abandoning the visit, wondered whether perhaps the risk outweighed the reward, but she had decided to take the chance. She would need the gems from the brooch in order to pay her way in the New World, and the plaited part was precious. It was her family, her past, her link to her self.
As Adeline waited for Daisy’s return, time dragged slow and heavy like a petulant child at her skirt. It was Eliza’s fault that Rose was dead. Her unsanctioned visit through the maze had precipitated the plans for New York, and thus brought forward the trip to Carlisle. Had Eliza stayed on the other side of the estate as she had promised, Rose would never have been on that train.
The door opened and Adeline drew breath. Finally, the servant was back, leaves in her hair, mud on her skirt, and yet she was alone.
‘Where is she?’ Adeline said. Was she searching already? Had Daisy used her own head for once and sent Eliza straight to the cove?
‘I don’t know, ma’am.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘When I got to the cottage it were all locked up. I looked through the windows but there was no sign.’
‘You should have waited a while. Perhaps she was in the village and would have returned soon.’
The girl was shaking her insolent head. ‘I don’t think so, ma’am. Only the fire were raked clean and the shelves were empty.’ Daisy blinked in that bovine way of hers. ‘I think she’s gone too, ma’am.’
Then Adeline understood. And knowledge heated quickly into rage, and rage seared beneath her skin, filling her head with sharp red shots of pain.
‘Are you all right, my Lady? Should you sit down?’
No, Adeline didn’t need to sit down. Quite the contrary. She needed to see for herself. Witness the girl’s ingratitude.
‘Take me through the maze, Daisy.’
‘I don’t know my way through, ma’am. No one does. None excepting Davies. I went round the road way, up the cliff track.’
‘Then fetch Newton and the carriage.’
‘But it’ll be getting dark soon, ma’am.’
Adeline narrowed her eyes and lifted her shoulders. Enunciated clearly: ‘Fetch Newton now and bring me a lantern.’
The cottage was neat but not empty. The kitchen area was still hung with various cooking instruments but the table was wiped clear. The coat hook by the door was bare. Adeline suffered a wave of illness and felt her lungs contract. It was that girl’s lingering presence, thick and oppressive. She took the lantern and started up the narrow stairs. There were two rooms, the larger spartan but clean, containing the bed from the attic, an old quilt pulled tight across its surface. The other housed a desk and chair and a shelf full of books. The objects on the desk had been arranged into stacks. Adeline pressed her fingers against the wooden top, and leaned forward a little to see outside.
The last colour of the day had broken over the sea, and the distant water rose and fell, gold and purple.
Rose is gone.
The thought came fast and jagged.
Here, alone, finally unobserved, Adeline could briefly stop pretending. She closed her eyes and the knots in her shoulders dropped.
She longed to curl up on the floor, wooden boards smooth and cool and real beneath her cheek, and never have to rise again. To sleep for a hundred years. To have no one looking to her for an example. To be able to breathe—
‘Lady Mountrachet?’ Newton’s voice drifted up the stairs. ‘’Tis growing dark, my Lady. The horses will have difficulty getting down if we don’t leave soon.’
Adeline drew a sharp breath. Shoulders were wrenched back into position. ‘A minute.’
She opened her eyes and pressed a hand against her forehead. Rose was gone and Adeline would never recover, but there was further risk now. Though a part of Adeline longed to let Eliza and the girl disappear out of her life forever, things were more complicated than that. With Eliza and Ivory missing, surely together, Adeline faced the risk that people might learn the truth. That Eliza might speak of what they’d done. And that must not be allowed to happen. For Rose’s sake, for her memory, and for the Mountrachet family’s good name, Eliza must be found, returned, and silenced.
Adeline’s gaze swept once more across the desktop and lit upon the edge of a piece of paper emerging from beneath a stack of books. A word she recognised though at first could not place. She plucked the paper from where it was lodged. It was a list of sorts, made by Eliza: things to be done before she left. At the bottom of the list was printed Swindell. A name, Adeline thought, though she wasn’t sure how she knew.
Her heart beat faster as she folded the piece of paper and tucked it in her pocket. Adeline had found her link. The girl couldn’t expect to slip from notice. She would be found, and the child, Rose’s child, brought back where she belonged.
And Adeline knew just whose help to enlist to make it so.
46
Polperro, 2005
Clara’s cottage was small and white, and clung to the edge of a rock sheer, a short walk uphill from a pub called the Buccaneer.
‘Want to do the honours?’ asked Christian when they arrived.
Cassandra nodded, but she didn’t knock. She had been beset, suddenly, by a wave of nervous excitement. Her grandmother’s long-lost sister was on the other side of the door. In just a few moments, the riddle that had plagued Nell for most of her life would be solved. Cassandra glanced at Christian and thought again how pleased she was that he had come with her.
After Ruby had left for London that morning, Cassandra had waited for him on the front steps of the hotel, clutching her copy of Eliza’s fairytales. He’d brought his, too, and they’d discovered that there was indeed a story missing from Cassandra’s book. The gap in the binding was so narrow, the cut so neat, that Cassandra hadn’t noticed it before. Even the missing page numbers hadn’t drawn her attention. The figures were so swirly, so elaborate that it would have taken a degree in penmanship to discern the difference between 54 and 61.
On the drive to Polperro, Cassandra had read ‘The Golden Egg’ aloud. As she did so, she’d became more and more convinced that Christian was right, that the story was an allegory for R
ose’s acquisition of her daughter. A fact which made her more certain than ever of what it was that Clara wished to tell her.
Poor Mary, forced to give up her first child then keep it a secret. No wonder she’d unburdened herself to her daughter in her final days. A lost child followed a mother all her life.
Leo would be almost twelve now.
‘Are you okay?’ Christian was watching her, a frown of concern narrowing his eyes.
‘Yeah,’ said Cassandra, folding away her memories. ‘I’m okay.’ And, as she smiled at him, it didn’t feel so much a lie as usual.
She lifted her hand and was about to rap on the knocker when the door flew open. Standing in the low and narrow frame was a plump old woman whose apron, tied around her middle, gave the impression of a body formed by two balls of dough. ‘I seen you standing there,’ she said, grinning, finger curled to point at them, ‘and I says to myself, “They must be my young guests.” Now come on in, the two of you, and I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea.’
Christian sat beside Cassandra on the floral sofa and they juggled patchwork cushions between them to make room. He looked so hopelessly oversized amongst such dainty adornments that Cassandra had to fight the urge to laugh.
A yellow teapot occupied pride of place on the seachest in the lounge room, shrouded in a knitted cosy shaped like a hen. It looked remarkably like Clara, Cassandra thought: small alert eyes, a plump body, sharp little mouth.
Clara fetched a third cup and strained leaf tea into each. ‘My own special blend,’ she said. ‘Three parts Breakfast, one part Earl Grey.’ She peered over her half-glasses. ‘English Breakfast, that is.’ When the milk was added she eased herself into the armchair by the fire. ‘’Bout time I gave my poor old feet a rest. Been on them all day, organising the stalls for the harbour festival.’
‘Thanks for seeing me,’ said Cassandra. ‘This is my friend Christian.’
Christian reached across the seachest to shake Clara’s hand and she blushed.
‘Pleasure to meet you, I’m sure.’ She took a sip of tea, then nodded towards Cassandra. ‘The museum lady, Ruby, told me about your grandma,’ she said. ‘The one what didn’t know who her parents were.’
‘Nell,’ said Cassandra. ‘That was her name. My great-grandfather Hugh found her when she was a little girl, sitting on top of a white suitcase on the Maryborough wharf. He was port master and a ship—’
‘Maryborough, you say?’
Cassandra nodded.
‘Now that’s a coincidence, that is. I’ve got family in a place called Maryborough. In the Queen’s land.’
‘Queensland.’ Cassandra leaned forward. ‘Which family?’
‘My mum’s brother moved there when he was a young fellow. Raised his children, my cousins.’ She cackled. ‘Mum used to say they’d settled there for her name’s sake.’
Cassandra glanced at Christian. Was that why Eliza had put Nell on that particular ship? Was she returning her to Mary’s family, to Nell’s own true family? Rather than take the child to Polperro and risk having local people recognise her as Ivory Mountrachet, had she opted for Mary’s faraway brother? Cassandra suspected that Clara held the answer, all she needed was nudging in the right direction.
‘Your mother, Mary, used to work at Blackhurst Manor, didn’t she?’
Clara swallowed a large gulp of tea. ‘Worked there until she was given her marching orders, 1909 that was. She’d been there since she was but a girl, near on ten years. Let go for being in the family way.’ Clara lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Wasn’t married, you see, and in those days that wasn’t the done thing. But she wasn’t a bad girl, my mum. She was straight as a pound of candles. She and my dad were married in the end, right and proper. Would’ve done so before only he was struck down with the pneumonia. Nearly didn’t make it to his own wedding. That’s when they moved here to Polperro, they came into a little bit of money and started the butchery.’
She picked up a small rectangular book from beside the tea tray. The cover was decorated with wrapping paper and fabric and buttons, and when Clara opened it Cassandra realised it was a photo album. Clara turned to a page that had been marked with a ribbon and handed it across the seachest. ‘That there’s my mum.’
Cassandra looked at the young woman with wild curls and wilder curves, trying to see Nell in her features. There was perhaps something of Nell about the mouth, a smile that played on her lips when she least intended. Then again, that was the nature of photos: the longer Cassandra looked, the more she seemed to see something of Aunt Phylly about the nose and eyes!
She handed the album to Christian and smiled at Clara. ‘She was very pretty, wasn’t she?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Clara with a saucy wink. ‘Quite the looker was my mum. Too pretty for service.’
‘Did she enjoy her time at Blackhurst, do you know? Was she sorry to leave?’
‘She was glad to leave the house, but sad to leave her mistress.’
This was new. ‘She and Rose were close?’
Clara shook her head. ‘I don’t know about no Rose. It was Eliza she used to talk about. Miss Eliza this, Miss Eliza that.’
‘But Eliza wasn’t the mistress of Blackhurst Manor.’
‘Well not officially, no, but she was always the apple of my mum’s eye. She used to say Miss Eliza was the only spark of life in a dead place.’
‘Why did she think it a dead place?’
‘Those that lived there were like the dead, my mum said. All gloomy for one reason or another. All wanting things they shouldn’t or couldn’t have.’
Cassandra pondered on this insight into life at Blackhurst Manor. It wasn’t the impression she’d formed from reading Rose’s scrapbooks, though certainly Rose, with her focus on new dresses and the adventures of her cousin Eliza, provided only one voice in a house that must’ve echoed with others. That was the nature of history, of course: notional, partial, unknowable, a record made by the victors.
‘Her bosses, the lord and lady, were each as nasty as the other according to my mum. They got theirs in the end though, didn’t they.’
Cassandra frowned. ‘Who did?’
‘Him’n’her. Lord and Lady Mountrachet. She died a month or two after her daughter, poisoning of the blood, it was.’ Clara shook her head and lowered her voice conspiratorially, almost gleefully. ‘Very nasty. My mum heard tell from the servants that she was a fright in her last days. Face all contorted so that she looked to be grinning like a ghoul, escaping from her sickbed to lurch along the hallways with a great ring of keys in hand, locking all the doors and raving about some secret that no one must know. Mad as a hatter she was in the end, and him not much better.’
‘Lord Mountrachet got blood poisoning too?’
‘Oh no, no, not him. Lost his fortune making trips to foreign places.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Voodoo places. They say he brought back souvenirs that’d make your hair stand on end. Went quite queer by all accounts. The staff left, all but one kitchen maid and a gardener who’d been there all his life. According to my mum, when the old boy finally died there was none there to find him for days.’ Clara smiled so that her eyes concertinaed shut. ‘Eliza got away though, didn’t she, and that’s the thing. Travelled across the sea, my mum said. She was always so glad about that.’
‘Not to Australia though,’ said Cassandra.
‘I don’t know where, truth be told,’ said Clara. ‘I only know what my mum told me: that Eliza got herself away from the horrid house in time. Went away like she’d always planned and never came back.’ She held aloft a finger. ‘That’s where those sketches came from, the ones the museum lady was so taken with. They were hers, Eliza’s. They were amongst her things.’
It was on the tip of Cassandra’s tongue to ask whether Mary had taken them from Eliza, when she caught herself. Realised that it might be construed as bad manners to suggest this woman’s dearly departed mother had thieved valuable artwork from her employer. ‘Which things?’
‘The
boxes my mum bought.’
Now Cassandra really was confused. ‘She bought some boxes from Eliza?’
‘Not from Eliza. Of Eliza’s. After she was gone.’
‘Who did she buy them from?’
‘It was a big sale. I remember it myself. My mum took me when I was a girl. It was 1935 and I was fifteen years old. After the old lord finally died, a distant family member from up Scotland way decided to sell the estate, hoping to raise some money during the Depression, I don’t doubt. Anyhow, my mum read about it in the newspaper and saw that they were planning on selling some of the smaller items, too. I think it gave her pleasure to think she might own a little piece of the place where she’d been treated so poor. She took me along because she said it’d do me good to see where she’d started out. Make me thankful that I wasn’t in service, encourage me to try harder at school so that I might have more than she did. Can’t say it worked, but it certainly did shock me. First time I’d seen anything like it. I’d no idea there were some that lived like that. You don’t see much that’s grand around these parts.’ She gave a nod to signal her approval of this state of affairs, then paused and gazed towards the ceiling. ‘Now, where was I?’
‘You were telling us about the boxes,’ prompted Christian. ‘The ones your mother bought from Blackhurst.’
She lifted a quivering finger. ‘That’s right, from the manor up Tregenna way. You should’ve seen the look on her face when she saw them. Sitting on a table with other odds and ends—lamps, paperweights, books and the like. Didn’t look much to me, but Mum knew right away they were Eliza’s. She took my hand, first time in my life, I reckon, and it was almost like she couldn’t get enough air. I actually started to worry, thought I should get her to a chair, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She seized upon those boxes. It was like she was frightened to walk away in case someone else should buy them. Didn’t seem likely to me—as I already said, they didn’t look like much—but beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?’
