A Gathering Storm (Porthkennack Book 2)

by Joanna Chambers

  That would bother Godfrey. As far as he was concerned, the Roscarrocks were the most important family in the county, and he would certainly regard this Sir Edward’s neglect of him as an insult.

  Not to mention being wildly jealous of his title, Nick thought, suppressing a grin.

  “Why d’you ask if I’d seen him if you know no one else has?” he asked, puzzled.

  “I thought you might have caught a glimpse on one of your wanderings,” Godfrey said carelessly. He cast Nick a sly glance. “Always up on those cliff tops, aren’t you? Just like your mother. Must be her Gypsy blood coming through.”

  Nick smiled thinly. He knew Godfrey meant that as an insult, but Nick refused to take it as one. Even as a very young child, he had known he was different. His skin was darker than most people’s round here, whether in summer or winter, and his hair wasn’t merely black, it was so black it shone with a bluish lustre in the sun, like the plumage on a crow. The only sign of his gadjo side, his father, was his eyes. These were a distinctive and very light silver grey, bright against his tawny skin. They marked him as an outcast on both sides. Not Roma. Not Cornishman. Not . . . anything.

  His mother hadn’t ever belonged in Porthkennack, but she’d had no choice but to stay. Her own father had refused to allow her to return to her people after she’d run off with the English gadjo. Not that it changed how she thought of herself—or Nick.

  “We are Roma,” she would tell him, fiercely. “You should leave here and join the family when I am gone. When they see how you are with the grai, they will know you are Roma through and through, and let you travel with them.”

  He’d hated when she talked like that, about dying. She’d been too young to talk like that. But she had died young after all, and now he wondered if somehow she had always known that was her fate. If the stories she spun about her fortune-telling had some kernel of truth in them, even though she’d told Nick they were just foolish nonsense she made up for the gadjikane villagers, to make a little money.

  “Our secret.”

  Nick had never met his mother’s people—he didn’t know if he wanted to—but they came back to Cornwall every second year, and he knew they would be in Penzance this summer. Lately he’d found himself thinking about going to see them, to meet Ma’s father and give him the news of his daughter’s death. Nick wondered if he would care. Ma had always spoken of her father with loyal affection, yet he was the one who had cast her out and refused to allow her to return to her people when Nick’s father abandoned her, forcing her to find another way to survive.

  He wondered too if he would feel a connection to the old man. To any of them. If he would be tempted to travel with them if they asked him to. To leave Porthkennack behind and take up a life on the road. That was what Ma had wanted. That was her dream for him.

  Nick pushed himself back from the fence.

  “I should be getting on,” he said. “I’ve to see Jessop about that damaged wall.”

  Godfrey nodded, distant now. “Join me for supper in the library,” he said. “Six o’clock. You can give me a proper report then.”

  Nick nodded, then turned on his heel and strode away, Snow lumbering and wheezing in his wake.

  From The Collected Writings of Sir Edward Fitzwilliam, volume I

  My brother George—my identical twin—preceded me into the world by six minutes. As boys we were as one, so much so that even our parents could not tell us apart. Our thoughts were as one too, and often we would speak the exact same words spontaneously. This changed forever, however, shortly after my eleventh birthday.

  Father had taken George, being the eldest son and heir to the title, to town with him, and while they were away, my sister Honoria and I both fell ill with the disease now called diphtheria and in those days called the morbid sore throat.

  My poor sister had the misfortune of falling ill first. As is well-known, victims of this cruel disease grow a putrid, grey, membranous substance in the throat that coats the tonsils and larynx. Within a week of taking to her bed, my sister could barely breathe and seemed like to suffocate. In desperation, and despite the warnings of our nurse, Mother called in a surgeon to try to cut some of the stuff away and ease the passage of air to her lungs. By all accounts, it was bloody work—certainly, I could hear Honoria’s screams from the other end of the house. Unable to withstand the shock of the ordeal, she died a few days later.

  I was spared this treatment but had to withstand endless days of struggling to breathe, dragging the tiniest threads of air through my clogged throat. I grew convinced my fate was to die from asphyxiation—something I cherish an utter dread of even now. At last, however, the membrane came loose and I could breathe again. The relief this brought was sadly short-lived as I was then afflicted by a weakening of the heart and paralysis, first of the face and then of the limbs. For weeks I could do nothing but lie and be tended to, like a newborn. Many times my parents were told they must expect my death. That this did not come to pass was, I feel quite sure, due to my mother’s tireless care for me, and her determination that I would live.

  Slowly, I recovered, but I was left with two permanent reminders of the disease. The first was a harsh, unbeautiful voice, my larynx having been permanently damaged. Even today, I cringe to hear my speaking voice and my laughter, which sounds like the barking of a dog. The second was the change in my similarity to my twin. While my body had been doing everything it could to resist death, George’s had continued to grow. I never quite caught up to him. By the time we were one-and-twenty, he was five foot ten inches with broad shoulders and strong arms, while I was three inches shorter and far slighter.

  4th April 1853

  Messrs Godritch & Godolphin, Solicitors, Porthkennack

  “Now, tell me,” Mr. Godolphin said, settling back in his chair, “how may I help you, Sir Edward?”

  Ward regarded Mr. Godolphin over the polished expanse of his desk. Godolphin was the only solicitor in Porthkennack, Mr. Godritch having passed away some twenty years before. He was an unremarkable-looking man in late middle age, with a small paunch, thinning grey hair, and a rather rosy nose, the cause of which became plain when he insisted on breaking open a bottle of sherry, despite it still being afore noon. Ward’s glass of amber wine sat on the desk before him, untouched, as Godolphin sipped contentedly at his own.

  “It is a rather unusual matter,” Ward said. Godolphin’s gaze flickered briefly at Ward’s harsh, toneless voice. That was a more restrained response than during their introduction a few minutes before. Soon Godolphin would cease to react at all. It usually took a couple of meetings for people to become accustomed to it. Ward was used to such reactions, but still, they irritated him.

  Godolphin offered him a serene smile. “My practice is small but I am yet to be asked to deal with any matter beyond my abilities. Tell me—is it a question of property? Or perhaps you need to discuss your will? It is never too early to put arrangements in place—”

  “I need subjects,” Ward interrupted. “As many as you can get me.”

  “Subjects?” The solicitor frowned at him across his broad walnut desk. “Subjects? I’m not sure I follow.”

  “As you may have heard, I am a scientist, Mr. Godolphin. I am also fortunate to come from a family of some considerable means. I visited this area last year and became convinced it was the ideal place in which to carry out my work. That is why I purchased the land on which I subsequently built Varhak Manor.”

  “I was aware of that,” Mr. Godolphin said, inclining his head in acknowledgement. “Having acted for Mr. Roscarrock in that transaction, as you will no doubt recall.”

  “Of course,” Ward said, though in truth he hadn’t known, nor did he care. He’d left all the legal business to Mr. Embleton, his solicitor in London.

  “I first decided to purchase property in Cornwall,” he went on, “due to the weather conditions here. The work I am doing now is concerned with the impact of atmospheric electricity and electromagnetism on . . . certain spi
ritual and psychic phenomena. Since this part of the English coastline is prone to storms, it’s well situated for my experiments, as well as being not too far from London.” Ward leaned forward, over the desk, warming to his subject now. “The particular reason I selected Porthkennack, though, was because of the so-called ‘Round Hole’ situated at the edge of my property—”

  “The Hole?” Mr. Godolphin interjected, his tone doubtful.

  “Oh yes. I realise having a huge great hole in the ground might be off-putting for most buyers, but for me, it was the very reason I wanted this land. The conditions inside that crevice would usually only be found during a storm at sea. The air is constantly saturated with droplets of sea water, and there are frequent surges from sea level. I fully expect that in the course of an electromagnetic storm, these unusual conditions will be enhanced, and indeed I hope to take steps to further enhance them myself. For one thing, I’m installing certain equipment at the base of the Hole to stimulate production of ozone gas. Are you familiar with ozone g—”

  “Ah—Sir Edward?”

  Ward blinked at that and for the first time noticed that Godolphin looked . . . frankly bamboozled.

  “Excuse me,” the lawyer said, “but I’m not sure I am entirely following you. What does all this have to do with these subjects you want me to help you with?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Ward said, flushing. “I get a little ahead of myself sometimes, when I start talking about my work.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Godolphin said. “And perfectly understandable. But if you could perhaps explain what it is you need my assistance with, that may . . . expedite matters.”

  “Very well.” Ward paused and took a deep breath. This was the part he found more difficult. “It is my hypothesis—given the right person and the right conditions of electromagnetic and atmospheric activity—that it is possible for a living man to communicate with spirits.”

  Godolphin’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Then he picked up the sherry bottle, poured himself another large glass, and threw half of it back.

  Ward waited. He was well aware, painfully so, of how most people, especially educated people, viewed his work. But he also hoped that Godolphin, as a professional man with a living to make, would agree to help him regardless of his views regarding what Ward was trying to achieve.

  Eventually Godolphin said, “Are you a spiritualist, Sir Edward?”

  Ward shook his head. “By no means. Make no mistake, Mr. Godolphin, I am a scientist, first and always. I have witnessed some marvellous things in my life that others have ascribed to magic or religion, but there is nothing I have seen that I do not firmly believe may be perfectly explained by science, if not now, then someday.”

  Godolphin considered that and finally said, “What is it you want me to do?”

  “In order to conduct my experiments, I require various things”—Ward counted some of them off on his fingers—“electromagnetic activity, sea water, ozone gas. These are all things I am able to obtain in some form or other. There is one thing I need, however, that I have been unable to get: human subjects. It is this ingredient I require your assistance with.” Ward paused, then added, “I am willing to pay any volunteers you find me a generous sum for their assistance—and, of course, a fee to you for acting as my agent in this matter.”

  “What sort of person is it that you seek?” Godolphin asked. “Do you require your subjects to be literate, for example? What will they be asked to do?”

  Ward shook his head. “There is no need for them to be able to read or write. I will need them to tell me what they are experiencing, but that is all. My only real stipulation is that it would help if they have recently experienced a family bereavement.” He saw the lawyer frowning at that bluntly stated requirement. “As for what they will be asked to do, well, nothing much at all: merely submit to being put into a trance—”

  “A trance?” Godolphin sounded taken aback. “Do you mean mesmerism? If you mean to put them to sleep and press pins into them or some such thing, I’m afraid I could not countenance assisting you with any such endeavour.” He gave a dry chuckle to lighten his words, but Ward could see he meant it seriously.

  “No, no, of course not,” Ward reassured. “Nothing like that, Mr. Godolphin. I am not a circus performer. The reason I put my subjects into an hypnotic trance—which is in a fact a very subtly altered state from the usual—is not to deprive them of the ability to sense things, as the mesmerists purport to do, but rather to enhance their mental concentration. By focusing my subjects’ minds in this way, I hope to unlock what I believe is a latent ability we all have to reach beyond the boundary of the visible world we perceive around us.”

  As usual when he spoke of his work, Ward began to feel happier, excited at the prospect of the efforts that lay ahead, and of the tantalising possibility of success. He realised he was smiling, and that Godolphin was considering him with what looked like curious interest, no longer the wary man of business, but one man taking his measure of another.

  At length, Godolphin nodded. “Very well, Sir Edward. Let us give this a try. I will do what I can to help you find some subjects, and we will see how we go.” He rang the bell at the side of his desk and seconds later, the young man who had greeted Ward when he first arrived popped his head round the door.

  “You rang, Mr. Godolphin?”

  “Ah, Mr. Gwynn. Please come in,” Godolphin said. “We have a contract of agency to draw up.”

  Godolphin was as good as his word, but over the next several weeks, the few subjects he was able to send Ward’s way proved to be worse than useless.

  Agnes Penrose, a frowsy woman of about forty, blushed every time Ward asked her a question, could barely stammer out an answer, and was impossible to hypnotise due to her inability to maintain her gaze where Ward needed it to be to achieve the requisite state.

  Thomas Cadzow, a strapping young farm labourer, appeared a better prospect, at least at first. He succumbed to the trance state with ease, but it transpired he’d never suffered a bereavement in his life—not only were his mother, father, and six siblings alive and well, but all four grandparents and two great-grandparents were in fine fettle too. The man hadn’t lost so much as a pet cat.

  The worst, though, was Jago Jones, a sullen man who’d recently lost his place on one of the local fishing crews after being drunk and incapable one too many times. Silent at the outset, in his trance he grew tearful and spoke like a frightened child till Ward, alarmed, woke him. On waking, Jago was mortified to find himself cowering and wet faced. He claimed to remember nothing of what had occurred and grew angry with Ward, though all Ward had done was ask him to call to mind his dead father. He stormed out of Varhak Manor insisting Ward had been trying to possess him with witchcraft.

  A few days later, Godolphin called on Ward.

  Pipp showed him into Ward’s study, and he dropped into the chair opposite Ward’s desk with a heavy sigh.

  “Is something wrong?” Ward asked.

  “Mr. Jones’s family are swearing blind he’s been abed since he returned from undergoing your experiments,” Godolphin told Ward flatly. “They say he’s unable to see, hear, or speak since you put him in a trance.”

  Ward frowned. “Well, I can assure you, he was able to do all those things when he walked out my house shouting at the top of his voice.”

  Godolphin nodded wearily. “I pointed out to them he must’ve got home somehow. Nevertheless, that’s what they claim. And if they start spreading that rumour, your chances of getting any more subjects for your experiments will dwindle to nothing, I’m afraid.”

  Ward gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Well, that couldn’t be much worse than what I’ve had so far.”

  Godolphin sighed again. “Yes, I know and I’m sorry for it, but the truth is, the villagers have been more wary of your experiments than I expected them to be. It’s not so much the hypnotism that bothers them as the rumours that your work involves electricity. M
ost people round here have lost men to storms at sea at some time or another, and they don’t consider that such things are to be trifled with.”

  “Believe me, no one has more respect for the power of an electrical storm than I,” Ward replied. “I wouldn’t consider putting anyone in any kind of danger. For God’s sake, I’m erecting lightning rods round the Hole so that when I’m working in storm conditions, any strikes will be harmlessly discharged!”

  “That’s not how the villagers see it,” Godolphin said, shrugging. “So far as they’re concerned, your lightning rods attract lightning, and they can’t understand why on earth you’d want to do that.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Ward exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “But that’s how they think,” Godolphin pointed out patiently. “And that’s why I’ve not been able to find anyone else willing to be a subject. Mind, I’ll keep looking, but in the meantime, if you want the Jones family to be quiet, I suspect you’re going to have to pay them some money.”

  As much as that rankled, Ward hadn’t spent months building Varhak Manor and planning the work he would carry out there, only to throw his efforts away now by allowing the Jones family to defame him the length and breadth of the county. Besides, as much as he doubted the truth of their claims over Jago’s incapacity, he still felt faintly guilty every time he remembered the sight of the man weeping like a babe. And so, in the end, he instructed Godolphin to offer the Jones clan twenty pounds in exchange for their silence, and they happily took it.

  Jago Jones was, of course, walking and talking as well as anyone else within a day of the money being handed over. He blew the lot at a boxing match at Trebudannon, got spectacularly drunk, overturned his buggy on the way home, and caved in his skull. He died three days later.