Poet's Cottage

by Josephine Pennicott

  Poets had always lived there, the locals claimed. It was as if the house called to its own . . .

  When Sadie inherits Poet’s Cottage in the Tasmanian fishing town of Pencubitt, she sets out to discover all she can about her notorious grandmother, Pearl Tatlow. Pearl was a children’s writer who scandalised 1930s Tasmania with her behaviour. She was also violently murdered in the cellar of Poet’s Cottage and her killer never found.

  Sadie grew up with a loving version of Pearl through her mother, but her aunt Thomasina tells a different story, one of a self-obsessed, abusive and licentious woman. And Pearl’s biographer, Birdie Pinkerton, has more than enough reason to discredit her.

  As Sadie and her daughter Betty work to uncover the truth, strange events begin to occur in the cottage. And as the terrible secret in the cellar threads its way into the present day, it reveals a truth more shocking than the decades-long rumours.

  Poet’s Cottage is a beautiful and haunting mystery of families, bohemia, truth, creativity, lies, memory and murder.

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Author’s note

  Acknowledgements

  About Josephine Pennicott

  Copyright page

  For Mum and Dad

  And my daughter Daisy Pennicott Levell, who carries our story forward

  I entreat you (however trite the words may be) to think that life is not empty nor made for nothing, and that the parts of it fit one into another in some way; and that the world goes on, beautiful and strange and dreadful and worshipful.

  —William Morris

  Prologue

  Pencubitt, Tasmania, Sunday 12 July 1936

  Something was wrong.

  Thomasina knew everything had changed. Her younger sister Marguerite, oblivious, was pushing her doll on the lawn in the cart their father had made. The sky was the same heavy grey colour it had been all day. ‘It’s going to snow,’ the shopkeepers all said that morning when Thomasina went into town to run some errands for her mother, but instead of snow a thick fog had unexpectedly blanketed the town. The heaviest fog in Pencubitt for a hundred years, Daddy had said before he left in a storm of banging doors and shouting at Mother.

  Now the gramophone was playing inside the house. She could hear the strains of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ ’, one of her mother’s favourite tunes. A girls’ annual of adventure stories lay on the lawn. Everything was exactly as it had been all day – but there was a difference. Thomasina stood up from where she had been hunched, coatless and shivering. She needed to use the commode. Although her stomach was telling her that lunchtime was long gone, her mother had warned the girls not to disturb her. ‘I’m writing,’ she’d said. ‘Play in the yard until you’re called. If either of you interrupts me, your lives won’t be worth living – I’ll set my devil onto you both!’

  Thomasina and Marguerite lived in fear of the Tasmanian devil that their mother claimed to have rescued from a hunter’s trap. Leashed in the cellar, it was ready to obey Mother’s every command. The girls had never seen it, but they heard its snarling and that was enough. Normally devils fed only on carrion, but Mother fed it meagre scraps and the devil was hungry enough to hurl its squat black bulk at live prey. Starving and desperate enough to consider hunting two wilful girls. And it could run like the wind.

  In spite of what she’d said, Thomasina knew that Mother wasn’t working. There had been no clacking of the typewriter, and shortly after their father had left the house – his voice now as cold as the morning frost when he spoke to Mother – Thomasina had heard two voices shouting. Mother often yelled – even at herself – when she was having one of her turns. Or had the devil achieved the power of speech like so many of the animal characters in her books? Nothing seemed impossible in Mother’s world.

  Thomasina glanced around the garden at the statues of some of her mother’s creations: Kenny Kookaburra, Gertrude Goanna and Billy Blue-Tongue. Harriet Huntsman, made of leather and straw, perched on a tree while the Bindi-eye Men glared malevolently from behind a bush. Both Harriet and the Bindi-eye Men still terrified Thomasina at times. Did they really come alive at night as Mother swore they did? She glanced at her sister, wondering if Marguerite had now sensed that something was wrong, but Marguerite continued to chatter to her stupid doll. It would never occur to Marguerite to disobey her precious mother, even if her hands and legs were blue with cold.

  Thomasina’s bladder gave another sharp warning signal. The music coming from the house was extremely loud. Even though she knew it was impossible, Thomasina half expected her mother to come dancing out at any moment to teach the girls some steps, or else to stand and scream at them like a banshee about some imagined misdemeanour.

  Suddenly the music stopped. Had the devil finished with Mother and was he now sniffing out the two children? All was silent.

  Thomasina saw again, like flashes from a lighthouse, the scenes she had witnessed a few minutes ago. The gloomy light near the bottom step. Dim rows of stored wine bottles, packing crates, gardening supplies. Her mother on a wooden table, arms over her head. The devil hunched above her, pulling long strands of something terrible from her stomach. The smell of blood. The devil’s grunts were unearthly: a satisfied, wrong sound. Pushing against her mother, groaning, snarling and making a savage whooping noise. Mother’s body twitching, making small noises that made no sense to her daughter.

  Thomasina was out in the yard and the sky was still heavy with snow. Marguerite was playing with her doll as if nothing had happened. Perhaps nothing of any great importance had.

  Thomasina went behind a bush, pulled down her undergarments, squatted and urinated. Steam rose from the urine and some splashed onto her new shoes. Good. She hated those shoes.

  She thought of the dark cellar again and the beast Mother kept chained there, now consuming its gaoler. ‘Serves her right,’ she muttered. ‘Serves her right.’

  She sensed movement behind her and knew something dreadful was near. Turning her head slowly, she gazed with dawning horror at what was standing there – not the devil, freed at last from his cellar restraints, but something worse. Trembling violently, Thomasina closed her eyes: she knew how to banish the spectre – Angel had taught her. Keeping her eyes shut, she began to hum a tune to herself. She knew one truth about ghosts: if she couldn’t see them, they weren’t there.

  Return to Poet’s

  Pencubitt, Tasmania, October, present day

  Poets had always lived there, the locals claimed. It was as if the house called to its own.

  Sadie and Betty fell silent as they stared up at the imposing white Georgian house covered with a luxuriant mass of climbing roses. The half-dozen chimneypots on the tin roof were visible from the front. Poet’s Cottage seemed to beckon them, as if its very foundations sensed that family had returned. ‘It’s unreal!’ Betty was more excited than Sadie had dared to hope. ‘Like something from the BBC!’

  This was the home
where Sadie’s bohemian grandmother, Pearl Tatlow, had scandalised the Pencubitt locals in the thirties with her jazz and murder parties. Sadie had grown up on stories of the exotic furnishings Pearl had had shipped from around the world, and the statues with which she’d filled the cottage’s enchanted gardens – statues of characters from her books: the Hairy Scary Fairies, the Bindi-eye Men, Kenny Kookaburra, Maisie M Magpie, Polly Possum, Harriet Huntsman and others. After enjoying minor fame in the 1930s, Pearl’s creations were now coming back into vogue with a resurgence of interest in early Australian women writers. Sadie felt the timing would be perfect for her own book about Pearl. She had dreamed of writing it for years, and hoped that coming to Poet’s Cottage would give her all the inspiration she needed.

  Sadie’s mobile beeped, disturbing her reverie. She pulled it from her bag. Jack’s name appeared on the screen. Well, he could wait.

  ‘Was that Dad?’ Betty asked, looking momentarily sullen.

  ‘Yes, I’ll call him back later.’ Sadie attempted to keep her tone neutral. Betty had been through enough without having to worry about her mother’s anger towards her father.

  But trust Jack to disturb even this moment. Poet’s Cottage had haunted Sadie for years. Now, at last, here in touching distance was the house where her mother had played, laughed and dreamed. She could almost feel Marguerite’s joy that her daughter had returned. With the exception of that one disturbing incident shortly after her mother’s death eight months ago, Sadie had found it difficult to sense Marguerite’s spirit in the bustle of Sydney. However, in the tranquillity of this Tasmanian fishing hamlet, where you could smell chimney smoke and hear the birds’ calls, it was difficult to believe the city even existed. Across the road from Poet’s Cottage, hares ran on the nature strip leading to the sea, and seagulls cried above the water. The emptiness and beauty of the natural surrounds was almost overpowering.

  The house was on the coast road leading out of Pencubitt. Dotted alongside it were a few other seaside homes, some of a similar era to Poet’s. A curtain twitched at the window of a nearby house. Between Poet’s Cottage and the water a large graveyard added to the gothic splendour of the coast with its weathered stone crosses and angel statues looking out to sea. Generations of Pencubitt families rested for eternity next to Poet’s Cottage. Shelley Beach seemed to utter a wild welcome as the wind lashed the waves onto the miles of white sand. The house backed onto bushland, with rolling emerald hills offering a pleasant contrast to the white stone cottages dotting the harbour. Sadie thought she could have been in Cornwall. After years of shallow-breathing Sydney’s fumes, her lungs greedily feasted upon the pristine Tasmanian air.

  ‘Mrs Jeffreys?’ A large, ruddy-cheeked man in a red-checked cap strode up the path towards them. ‘I’m Jeremy Flannery, the gardener and odd-job man for Poet’s. Pleased to meet you. It will do the old house good to have some life around her.’

  ‘Hello, Jeremy. Call me Sadie. And this is my daughter, Betty.’

  Betty ignored Jeremy, and continued to stare up at the house. ‘I thought I saw a woman at the window,’ she said.

  ‘Probably the ghost, cobber,’ Jeremy said, watching her.

  ‘The house has a ghost?’ Sadie said lightly, hoping that Betty wouldn’t take it seriously. Betty had already been under enough stress with her grandmother’s death, the break-up of her parents’ marriage and the bullying she had endured at St Catherine’s. Betty may seem to have recovered from her eating disorder but if she felt too overwhelmed she might start to deny herself food again.

  Jeremy laughed. ‘So the village says. Never saw it myself. Still, they reckon your grandmother Pearl refuses to leave Poet’s – just old hens clucking, but it keeps the kids from breaking into the house so I put it about that the ghost is there.’

  ‘Cool,’ Betty said, still looking upwards. ‘I bet her ghost does haunt this place. She was murdered, wasn’t she? Her spirit is probably earthbound, trying to bring her murderer to justice.’

  ‘Oh Betty, what an imagination,’ Sadie said, feeling embarrassed in front of the gardener and at the same time hating herself for caring what Jeremy thought. She turned to him with a polite smile. ‘The garden looks terrific. You’ve really looked after the place.’ They stood in silence for a moment, admiring the cottage-style garden with its profusion of pansies, eggs and bacon, rhododendrons, azaleas and myriad other flowers that Sadie couldn’t identify.

  ‘I can’t take all the credit. It looks after itself a lot and the frost this winter was mild,’ Jeremy explained. ‘My wife Nancy planted some tulips around the back and started a more few roses going. She does a lot of the inside cleaning and I help with the heavier stuff.’ He paused and then added, ‘We were sorry to hear about Marguerite.’

  The pain kicked fiercely inside Sadie. ‘Thank you, Jeremy. That’s very kind. I got your card; your thoughts were most appreciated. My mother always had such happy memories of Poet’s Cottage.’

  ‘You’re a writer, aren’t you?’ he asked. Sadie nodded. ‘That’s good. We all heard that. That’s why you’ve come to live here and not her.’ He jerked his thumb in the direction of the back garden. ‘This house needs creative people.’

  Sadie glanced anxiously at Betty, but her daughter just nodded in agreement.

  ‘Let’s go inside.’ Jeremy produced an envelope with the key. ‘You can do the honours, Sadie.’

  As they walked up the flagstone path, Sadie imagined she could see the young Tatlow family arriving at the house all those years ago, her grandmother with a fox fur around her neck and holding the hands of two small girls half-asleep from the long trip, dressed in identical buttoned-up coats. The four of them looking up at Poet’s Cottage and then Pearl laughing as her young husband scooped her up to carry her over the threshold. She heard children’s voices, carried by the wind of time, playing in the garden. Her mother and Thomasina running up the front path, dragging a small painted wooden billycart behind them. All the hope and joy of a new life, a loving family. It was hard to believe that just over a year later Pearl Tatlow had been killed viciously in her own home and decades on Marguerite had died a lingering death in a Sydney hospital, never to see her beloved Poet’s Cottage again.

  The oak front door with its leadlight and old brass knocker opened to reveal a long corridor. A small wooden table held a vase of yellow roses, and colourful patterns splashed over the Baltic pine floorboards from another leadlight at the end of the hallway. The house smelled slightly of damp and lavender.

  ‘Nancy got it ready for you,’ Jeremy said, breaking the silence. ‘I hope it’s all to your liking.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Sadie said. The house felt welcoming, but the memories of her mother were so strong that she had to resist the urge to lie on the floor and sob. How could grief be so raw nearly a year on?

  A painting in an elaborate wooden frame hung near the front door. Sadie remembered the portrait from her childhood, her grandmother meeting the viewer’s gaze with her head slightly tilted, her eyes mocking, a long string of beads around her neck. The painting appeared on the cover of Webweaver, with Kenny Kookaburra, Gertrude Goanna, the Dastardly Bull-Ant Twins, Harriet Huntsman and other characters from Pearl’s imagination illustrating the border, circling their creator in a riot of colour.

  ‘Would you like me to carry your bags up to your rooms?’ asked Jeremy.

  ‘No, that’s fine.’ Sadie wanted to absorb the atmosphere.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it. You have my number if you need me. Don’t let the ghost or Thomasina chase you out.’ Sadie heard him whistling a tune as he made his way through the front gate.

  ‘Mum!’ Betty called from upstairs. ‘Come and see the bedrooms. They’re freaking awesome!’

  Sadie ran up the stairs to find that Betty had already claimed the larger one overlooking the sea and graveyard; her daughter was clearly thrilled with its dramatic wallpaper of pink and yellow peacocks and the tapestry-draped four-poster. Sadie was relieved to see Betty apparently so hap
py in the house. Her daughter had wept and sulked at leaving her friends behind but already seemed like a new person.

  Sadie set down her own suitcase in the adjoining bedroom, which had art deco furnishings and patterned gold and pink wallpaper. She continued to feel Marguerite’s presence as they wandered through each room – it was particularly strong in the former nursery, which still had its colourful nursery-rhyme wallpaper. She touched a growth chart near the door, with ‘Thomasina’ and ‘Marguerite’ neatly handwritten next to the marks signalling their height. Somebody had loved the little girls enough to record their growth for history.

  Although Poet’s Cottage looked so imposing on the outside, it was deceptively smaller inside. There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms – one an obvious addition – a combined living and dining room, a kitchen with a walk-in pantry, and a small washhouse at the back. Most of the original furniture was still there. Two large china dogs guarded the brick fireplace in the library; there was also a piano, and an icebox in the kitchen, which was cosy with wooden beams and interior window boxes.

  In contrast, the dank cellar chilled Sadie’s bones. This was the darkest shadow in the web of her grandmother’s life, the place where it had ended so bloodily. At that point she’d seemed to have everything: two beautiful daughters, her much-lauded beauty, a loving husband and a successful writing career. Neither mother nor daughter cared to linger in the dim, oppressive space. ‘We should paint it white,’ Sadie said to Betty.

  ‘We might need a priest to bless it,’ her daughter replied.

  ‘Betty, my love, you’ve been watching too many episodes of Medium!’ Sadie laughed, not knowing whether to be amused or appalled. Raised by two atheists, Betty was now turning to a priest.

  But it was impossible to escape Pearl’s presence. She might have died in 1936 but it was as if she had never left – nearly every room was adorned with framed photographs, paintings and sketches of her. Her Louise Brooks style and beauty was particularly apparent in her formal studio portraits: the tiny porcelain face, black bob, haughty eyes and pouting red mouth which indicated either petulance or sensuality. In her wedding photograph she was radiantly, movie-star glamorous; she clasped a large bouquet of orchids while Maxwell stood beside her, a lock of dark hair falling over one eye, a ready smile on his handsome face. Another portrait, taken with her two daughters, caught Marguerite looking up at her mother as Pearl returned the gaze with a small smile. Thomasina’s face was half-averted, her expression obscured by a floppy fringe. The girls’ bobbed hair mimicked their mother’s style. Even at their tender age, their personalities could be discerned in their expressions. Two-year-old Marguerite’s beaming face displayed only love and admiration for her mother whilst Thomasina was clearly disobeying the photographer’s instructions to pose.