by Kate Morton
She kept it wrapped in a towel, stowed safely in the dark corner at the very top of her linen cupboard, and every so often she would pull it out and unwrap it, just to take a peek. Its beauty, the deep green leaves painted on the side, the gold threads running through the design, the Art Nouveau fairies hidden amongst the foliage, had the power to cool her skin.
Nonetheless Nell was resolute: she had reached a point where she could live without her vase. Could live without all her precious things. She’d made a choice and that was that. She wrapped the vase in another layer of newspaper and placed it gently in the box with the others. Up to the shop on Monday and priced to sell. And if she had twinges or regrets, she just had to focus on the end result: having sufficient funds to start afresh in Tregenna.
She was itching to return. Her mystery grew ever more perplexing. She had heard, finally, from the detective, Ned Morrish. He’d conducted his investigation and sent her a report. Nell had been in the shop when it arrived; a new customer, Ben Something-or-other, had brought the letter in with him when he came. When Nell saw the foreign stamps, the handwriting on the front, neat and flat at the bottom, as if written along a ruler’s edge, she’d felt a flush beneath her skin. It was all she could do not to tear it open with her teeth, then and there. She’d retained her composure though, made her excuses when it seemed polite, and taken the letter into the little back kitchenette.
The report was brief, had only taken Nell a couple of minutes to read, and its contents left her more confused than ever. According to Mr Morrish’s investigations, Eliza Makepeace had gone nowhere in 1909 or 1910. She had been at the cottage the whole time. He’d included various documents to support this assertion—an interview conducted with someone who claimed to have worked at Blackhurst, various correspondence she’d had with a publisher in London, all sent and received via Cliff Cottage—but Nell hadn’t read those, not until later. She’d been too surprised by the news that Eliza hadn’t gone away. That she’d been there all along, in the cottage the entire time. William had been so certain. She’d slipped from public sight, he said, for twelve months or so. When she returned she’d been different, some spark had been missing. Nell couldn’t understand how William’s memories could be made to tally with Mr Morrish’s discovery. As soon as she got back to Cornwall she would speak with William again. See whether he had any ideas.
Nell wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. A stinker of a day, but that was Brisbane in January. The skies might be glistening blue like a dome of fine, flawless glass, but there’d be a storm later tonight, there was no doubting that. Nell had lived long enough to know when angry clouds were thickening in the wings.
Down in the street, Nell heard a car slow. She didn’t recognise it as one of her neighbours’ vehicles: too loud for Howard’s Mini, too high-pitched for the Hogans’ big Ford. There was a dreadful din as the car mounted the kerb too sharply. Nell shook her head, glad she’d never learned to drive, never had need of a car. They seemed to bring out the worst in people.
Whiskers sat upright and arched her back. Now the cats Nell would miss. She’d have happily taken them with her, but feeding other people’s cats was one thing, abducting them quite another.
‘Hey there nosy,’ said Nell, tickling the cat beneath her chin. ‘Don’t you go worrying about that noisy old car.’
Whiskers miaowed and leapt from the table, glanced at Nell.
‘What? You think there’s someone here to see us? Can’t think who, m’dear. We’re not exactly social central, in case the fact escaped your notice.’
The cat slunk across the floor and out of the back door. Nell dropped the pile of newspaper. ‘Oh, all right, madam,’ she said, ‘you win. I’ll have a gander.’ She scratched Whiskers’s back as they went along the narrow concrete path. ‘Think you’re clever, don’t you, bending me to your will—’
Nell stopped at the back corner of the house. The car, a station wagon, had indeed stopped outside her place. Coming up the cement path was a woman wearing large bronze sunglasses and tiny shorts. Lagging behind was a skinny child with slumped shoulders.
They stood, all three, regarding one another for a time.
Finally Nell found her voice, if not the words she wished to speak. ‘I thought you agreed to call first in future.’
‘Good to see you too, Mum,’ Lesley said, and then she rolled her eyes the way she had as a fifteen year old. It had been an infuriating habit then, as was it now.
Nell felt the old grievances resurfacing. She’d been a poor mother to Lesley, she knew that, but it was too late now to make amends. What was done was done and Lesley had turned out all right. Had turned out, at any rate. ‘I’m in the middle of sorting boxes for auction,’ said Nell, swallowing the lump in her throat. This wasn’t the time to mention the move to England. ‘I’ve things everywhere, there’s no room to sit.’
‘We’ll manage.’ Lesley flicked her fingers in the girl’s direction. ‘Your granddaughter’s thirsty, it’s bloody hot out here.’
Nell looked at the girl, her granddaughter. Long limbs, knobbly knees, head bowed to avoid notice. There was no doubt about it, some children were sent into the world with more than their fair share of difficulties.
Of all things, her mind tossed up an image then of Christian, the little boy she’d discovered in her Cornish garden. The motherless boy with the earnest brown eyes. Does your granddaughter like gardens? he’d asked, and she, Nell, had not known how to answer.
‘All right then,’ she said, ‘you’d better come inside.’
48
Blackhurst Manor, 1913
Horses’ hooves thundered against the cold, dry earth, charging west towards Blackhurst, but Eliza didn’t hear them. Mr Mansell’s sponge had done its work and she was lost in a fog of chloroform, her body slumped in the dark corner of the carriage . . .
Rose’s voice, soft and broken: ‘There is something I need, something only you can do. My body fails me as it has always done, but yours, Cousin, is strong. I need you to have a child for me, Nathaniel’s child.’
And Eliza, who had waited so long, who wanted so desperately to be needed, who had always known herself a half in search of a double, didn’t have to think. ‘Of course,’ she’d said. ‘Of course I’ll help you, Rose.’
He came every night for a week. Aunt Adeline, with Dr Matthews’s counsel, calculated the dates and Nathaniel did as he was bidden. Made his way through the maze, around the side of the cottage, and up to Eliza’s front door.
On the first night, Eliza waited inside, pacing the kitchen floor, wondering whether he would arrive, whether she should have prepared something. Wondering how people behaved at such a time. She had agreed to Rose’s request without hesitation, and in the weeks that followed had thought little about what the commitment would involve. She had been too full of gratitude that Rose finally needed her. It was only as the day drew nearer that she began to contemplate the hypothetical becoming actual.
And yet, there was nothing she would not do for Rose. She told herself over and over that her actions would cement their bond forever, no matter how hideous the unknown act might be. It became a mantra of sorts, an incantation. She and Rose would be tied like never before. Rose would love her more than she ever had, would not dispense with her so easily again. It was all for Rose.
When the knock came that first night, Eliza repeated the mantra, opened the door and let Nathaniel inside.
He stood for a time in the hallway, larger than she remembered, darker, until Eliza indicated the coat hook. He removed his outer layer, then he smiled at her, almost gratefully. It was then that she realised he was as disquieted as she.
He followed her to the kitchen, gravitated towards the security, the solidity, of the table, leaned on the back of a chair.
Eliza stood on the other side, wiped clean hands against her skirts, wondered what to say, how to proceed. It was best, surely, to do what was necessary and be done with it. There was no point in drawing out the discom
fort. She opened her mouth to say as much but Nathaniel was already speaking—
‘—thought you might like to see. I’ve been working on them all month.’
She noticed then that he carried with him a leather satchel.
He laid it on the table and slid a stack of papers from within. Sketches, Eliza realised.
‘I started with “The Fairy Hunt”.’ He thrust a sheet of paper before Eliza, and when she took it from him, she saw that his hands were quivering.
Eliza’s gaze fell to the illustration: black strokes, cross-hatched shadows. A pale, thin woman reclined on a low bed in a cold, dark turret. The woman’s face had been spun from lean, long lines. She was beautiful, magical, elusive, just as Eliza’s fairytale described her. And yet, it was something else in Nathaniel’s rendering of the hunted fairy’s face that struck Eliza. The woman in the picture looked like Mother. Not literally, it was something more and less than the curve of her lips, the cool almond eyes, the high cheekbones. In some indescribable way, by some form of magic, Nathaniel had captured Georgiana in his depiction of the fairy’s lifeless limbs, her weariness, the uncharacteristic resignation in her features. Strangest of all, it was the first time Eliza had realised that in her story of the hunted fairy she had been describing her own mother.
She glanced up at him, scanned the dark eyes that had looked somehow inside her soul. As he held her gaze, the firelight was suddenly warmer between them.
Circumstance heightened everything. Their voices were too loud, their movements too sudden, the air too cool. The act was not hideous as she had feared, nor was it ordinary. And there was something unexpected in its performance which she couldn’t help but savour. A closeness, an intimacy of which she had been deprived for so long. She felt part of a pair.
She wasn’t, of course, and it was a betrayal of Rose even to entertain such a notion, however briefly, and yet . . . His fingertips on her back, her side, her thigh. The warmth where their bare bodies met. His breath on her neck . . .
She opened her eyes at one point and watched his face, the expressions and stories arranging themselves on his features. And when his own eyes opened, his gaze locked with hers, she sensed herself suddenly, unexpectedly, as a physical being. Anchored, solid, real.
And then it was over and they moved apart, the bond of physical connectedness evaporated. They dressed and she walked him downstairs. Stood beside him by the front door making conversation about the recent high tide, the likelihood of bad weather in the coming weeks. Polite chatter, as if he had no more than stopped by to borrow a book.
Eventually his hand reached out to unlatch the door and heavy silence sagged between them. The weight of what they had done. He pulled open the door, pushed it closed again. Turned back to face her. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Rose wants . . . Her need is . . .’
She nodded again, and he smiled slightly. Opened the door and disappeared into the night.
As the week wore on, the unusual became usual and they settled into a routine. Nathaniel would arrive with his most recent sketches and together they would discuss the stories, the illustrations. He brought his pencils too, made alterations as they spoke. Often, when the sketches were complete, their conversation moved to other topics.
They spoke, too, as they lay together in Eliza’s narrow bed. Nathaniel told stories of the family Eliza had believed dead, the hardship of his youth, his father on the wharf and his mother’s hands, chapped from laundry. And Eliza found herself telling him things of which she had never spoken, secret things from before: about Mother, and the father she’d never known, her dreams of following him across the high seas. Such was the strange and unexpected intimacy of their connection, she even spoke of Sammy.
Thus the week passed, and on the final night Nathaniel arrived earlier. He seemed reluctant to do what they must. They sat on opposite sides of the table as they had the first night, but no words were exchanged. Then suddenly, without warning, Nathaniel reached out and lifted a strand of her long hair, red turned to gold by the glow of candlelight. His face as he looked at the threads between his fingers was focused. Dark hair fell to shadow his cheek and his black eyes widened with unspoken thoughts. Eliza suffered a sudden warm tightness in her chest.
‘I don’t want it to end,’ he said finally, softly. ‘It’s foolish, I know, but I feel—’
He paused as Eliza lifted her finger and pressed it to his lips. Silenced him.
Her own heart hammered beneath her dress and she prayed he could not tell. He must not be allowed to finish his sentence—dearly though some disloyal part of her longed it—for words have power, Eliza knew that better than most. Already they had allowed themselves to feel too much, and there was no room in their arrangement for feeling.
She shook her head lightly and finally he nodded. Refused to look at her for a time, said no more. And as he set about sketching in silence, Eliza suppressed the burning urge to tell him she had changed her mind.
When he left that night and Eliza went inside, the cottage walls seemed unusually silent and lifeless. She found a piece of card on the table where Nathaniel had been sitting, turned it over and saw her own face. A sketch. And for once she didn’t mind having been captured on paper.
Eliza knew they had succeeded even before the first month passed. An inexplicable sense of having company, even when she knew herself to be alone. Then her bleeding stayed away and she knew for certain. Mary, who had lost her own baby, had been reinstated at Blackhurst on a provisional basis and instructed to liaise between the house and the cottage. When Eliza told her, yes, that she believed a small life clung within her body, Mary sighed and shook her head, then took the message back to Aunt Adeline.
A wall was built around the cottage so that when Eliza’s belly began to swell, no one would see. Word spread that she had gone away and the world closed over the cottage. The simplest falsehoods are the strongest and this one performed perfectly. Eliza’s desire to travel was well known. It wasn’t a stretch for people to believe that she had left without a word, would be back when time suited. Mary was sent nightly with provisions and Dr Matthews, Aunt Adeline’s physician, attended every two weeks, under night’s black veil, to ensure the pregnancy’s health.
During the months of confinement, Eliza saw few other people and yet she never felt alone. She sang to her swelling stomach, whispered stories, had strange and vibrant dreams. The cottage seemed to shrink around her like a warm old coat.
And the garden, a place where her heart had always sung, was more beautiful than ever. The flowers smelled sweeter, looked brighter, grew faster. One day, when she was sitting beneath the apple tree, and the warm, sunny air moved heavily around her, she fell into a deep sleep. While she softly slumbered, a story came to her, as vividly as if some passing stranger had knelt by her ear and whispered their tale. A tale about a young woman who overcame her fears and travelled a great distance in order to uncover the truth for an ageing loved one.
Eliza woke suddenly, gripped with certainty that the dream was important, that it must be turned to fairytale. Unlike most dream inspirations, the tale required little manipulation. The child, the baby inside her, was central to the story, too. Eliza couldn’t explain how she knew, but she had the oddest certainty that the baby was connected in some way to the tale, had helped her to receive the story so vividly, so completely.
Eliza wrote the fairytale that afternoon, named it ‘The Crone’s Eyes’, and throughout the following weeks found herself wondering often about the sad old woman whose truth had been stolen from her. Though she had not seen Nathaniel since the night of their final meeting, Eliza knew he was still working on the illustrations for her book, and she longed to see those that her new tale inspired. One dark night, when Mary brought her supplies, Eliza asked after him, kept her tone even as she asked whether perhaps Mary might let him know that he may visit her sometime soon. Mary only shook her head.
‘Mrs Walker won’t have it,’
she said, lowering her voice, though they were alone in the cottage. ‘I heard her crying to the mistress about it, and the mistress was saying it wasn’t right for him to be going through the maze, going to see you. Not any more, not after what has happened.’ She glanced at Eliza’s swelling stomach. ‘Things might become confused, she said.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ said Eliza. ‘What was done was done for Rose. Both Nathaniel and I love her, we did as she requested to provide her that for which she longs more than anything else.’
Mary, who had made quite clear her own opinions about what Eliza had done, what she intended to do after the child was born, remained silent.
Eliza sighed, frustrated. ‘I wish only to speak with him about the illustrations for the fairytales.’
‘That’s another thing Mrs Walker isn’t too happy about,’ said Mary. ‘She doesn’t like him drawing for your stories.’
‘Whyever would she mind?’
‘Jealous, she is, green as old Davies’s thumb. Can’t bear to think of him spending his time and energy thinking about your stories.’
Eliza stopped waiting for Nathaniel after that; she sent her handwritten version of ‘The Crone’s Eyes’ back to Blackhurst with Mary, who agreed—against her better judgement, she said—to deliver it. A gift arrived by courier some days later, a statue for her garden, a little boy with an angel’s face. Eliza knew, even without reading the accompanying letter, that Nathaniel had sent it with Sammy in mind. In the letter he had also apologised for not visiting, made enquiries after her health, then moved quickly on to how much he loved the new story, how its magic had overtaken his thoughts, that ideas for the illustrations overwhelmed him so that he could bear to think of nothing else.
Rose herself came once a month, but Eliza grew to receive such visits cautiously. Things always started well, Rose would smile broadly when she saw Eliza, enquire after her health, and leap at the opportunity to feel the baby moving beneath her skin. But at some point in the visit, with neither warning nor provocation, Rose would recoil inexplicably, knot her hands, and refuse to touch Eliza’s stomach any more, refuse even to meet her eye. Her fingers would pluck instead at her own dress, padded to suggest a pregnancy.
