Poet's Cottage

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘Please, Tricky! I’ve had the crummiest day imaginable. And that talentless Edgar Cabret has just sent through another hopeless pile of Kenny drawings! Why I can’t have a decent illustrator, I’ll never know. I could do it better. Even she could do it better.’ Pearl pointed at Thomasina, who glowered and kicked a pile of seaweed to pieces.

  I held my tongue, knowing it was pointless agreeing or disagreeing with Pearl when she was in one of her rages. It was futile to point out, of course, that perhaps I could have been considered to illustrate some of her Silver Valley Tales. But as far as Pearl was concerned, she was the creative artist and I was Maxwell’s old friend who wrote boring books about historical buildings. She would never have credited me with any artistic ability – though for all Edgar’s talent, I knew I could do her characters more justice. The Sydney illustrator’s drawings often triggered violent explosions – Pearl was never happy with his interpretation of her characters. The fiery pair loved to plunge into protracted postal rows over the most trivial points and must have provided endless headaches for the publishers. I thought Pearl childish for her insistence that Kenny have a red bow tie and not the gold one that Edgar liked to sketch him with. This one tiny detail could set her off on hour-long rants.

  ‘Please, Tricky, please. I need to get my thoughts together. I’ll be fifteen minutes. Be a sport!’

  Looking back, I must have known the true nature of her ‘reflection’ at Bradley’s Cave. I felt a sense of foreboding – almost of doom – as I looked towards the entrance of the cave, only a stone’s throw away from us amongst a tangle of blackberry bushes and ferns. As I stared, I had the oddest sensation that another person was staring back at me.

  ‘Please don’t go, Pearl!’ I put out my hand to restrain her. ‘Stay here with me and talk about it.’ She waved away my hand contemptuously. ‘Don’t be long!’ I called after her departing back.

  Thomasina watched me warily as she poked at a dead jellyfish. I’d always been uneasy around Pearl’s elder daughter. Marguerite was the sort of child who made you long for a little girl. Thomasina had the opposite effect. Her direct stare that seemed to penetrate into your essence – and find you wanting – was unnerving. She exhibited few emotions and appeared much older than her age.

  ‘Mummy has a devil,’ she announced now.

  Did she mean Pearl was possessed? I wondered. Surely not.

  ‘In the cellar. One of the fishermen gave him to Mummy. She keeps him chained up in there. He’s Mummy’s special familiar, like the old witches and their cats. She said if we go down to the cellar, he’ll eat us. They eat children, you know!’

  ‘A Tasmanian devil?’ I marvelled at the lengths Pearl would go to. She was so macabre in her tastes and no doubt derived pleasure from frightening her daughters with her wild fabrication of a pet devil to make them behave. ‘Well, you must listen to your mother and keep out of the cellar. Perhaps you mistook what she was saying? It would be very difficult to keep a Tasmanian devil locked up, Thomasina.’

  ‘It’s there,’ Thomasina said. ‘I’ve heard it. A grunting, terrible sound.’ Her gaze said clearly, What would you know? She whipped off her beret and I gasped at the sight of her hair. The back had been shaved to her scalp, leaving long strands of hair at the front.

  ‘Mummy did it,’ she said. ‘I cried and kicked her. Daddy said it’ll grow back. I hate Mummy! I wish she was dead. If Mummy was dead I’d be happy. I’m going to run away one day where nobody can find me! I’m going to find another, nice mummy!’

  ‘You mustn’t talk like that,’ I said. ‘It’s a sin to speak about your parents in such a way.’

  ‘I hate you too. I wish you were dead with Mummy!’

  With that she turned her back on me and wandered further down the beach looking for shells, leaving me trembling with a combination of sympathy and dislike. If she hadn’t been so prickly, I might have been able to warm to her more. All I knew was that I didn’t like her. In fact, I feared her. She was too much like Pearl for comfort. If it had been Marguerite, we could have passed the time making up stories about mermaids, pirates and sea fairies. Marguerite was such a gentle, uncomplicated child.

  It seemed an age before Pearl rejoined us, looking flushed. ‘Nothing like some quiet reflection to chase the cobwebs away,’ she said. My eyes went to the front of her frock, now buttoned incorrectly. She smirked when she saw me staring at her chest and lit another cigarette.

  ‘Thomasina tells me you’re keeping a devil in the cellar,’ I dared to state.

  ‘Yes. Jolly, isn’t it? I’m planning on hand-rearing the little fellow and leading him around Pencubitt on a leash. Give them something else to talk about instead of the same old boring claptrap about my fornications. I’ll call him Samuel and pop a frilly collar around his neck. He’s really rather sweet.’ There were times when it was impossible to tell where Pearl’s imagination took over from reality. She could be as fanciful and oblivious as a child – and perhaps that was the key to her tragic destiny. Like a child, whatever Pearl wanted, she took, apparently unaware that her actions could have repercussions. But as we were all to discover, the consequences of her behaviour were horrifying.

  That November (a far colder and stormier November than usual) could be seen in hindsight as the beginning of the end. In less than eight months, Pencubitt would be mourning the loss of Pearl’s lover, Teddy, and shortly afterwards, Pearl herself.

  An angel at Poet’s Cottage

  Emily McCarthy, the local girl hired by Maxwell to assist Pearl with running the house and minding the children (in Pearl’s words, keeping the brats quiet while she wrote), was a large girl, unfashionably curvaceous. Her long blonde hair was worn in a straggly bun and a crooked smile revealed a couple of missing teeth. Her one claim to beauty was her complexion, which was smooth and gleamed like moonshine. She wasn’t terribly bright; like many in Pencubitt she had left school early to help care for her brothers and sisters, of which there were twelve. Despite being thick as two planks, she was undeniably efficient in her duties. And Thomasina and Marguerite adored her. In fact, in Emily’s presence, Thomasina was transformed into a different girl.

  In keeping with her annoying habit of bestowing nicknames, Pearl had christened her Angel. I found it a tedious game, since Pearl changed the names at will and sulked if you forgot your name. I thought Emily rather too coarse for an angel. In truth, I was resentful. Prior to her employment, I’d been the only local woman (other than Violet, who was of a different class from us and hardly counted) privileged with regular access to Poet’s Cottage. Aged only seventeen, Emily was now with Maxwell and Pearl every day.

  Emily was always hovering when I visited, with a cleaning rag in one hand, her mouth hanging slightly open as she fussed about (and, I’m sure, taking in every word to report back to her gossiping mother, Rhonda McCarthy). I felt like an interloper. Maxwell was still delighted to see me but I was put out to see that I now had to share his attention with ‘his’ Angel. Pearl and Maxwell treated her like a prized doll, constantly marvelling over her prowess with household chores and proclaiming how much the children loved her. Little wonder the girl began to give herself such airs!

  One day in early December, I visited Poet’s Cottage to bring Pearl a shortbread recipe that she’d requested urgently for a forthcoming afternoon tea. It was a warm day, a contrast to the chilly November we had endured. My knocking brought no response; reasoning that Pearl and the girls must have gone to the beach, I decided to let myself in and leave the recipe on the hall table. No door was ever locked at Pencubitt. Why should it be? The town had never known a single crime and we all knew and trusted each other. (After Pearl was killed, it was a very different matter, of course. Neighbour looked upon neighbour with fear and suspicion and slowly doors began to be secured even against familiar faces.)

  As I stepped through the front door I could hear laughter coming from the back garden. The cottage felt cool after the harsh sunshine and the hallway was scented with lavender and co
oking odours. I caught sight of my reflection in a wall mirror. I looked flushed, excited and pretty. Seeing the anticipation in my face, I was filled with some wild longing that I could hardly express. A desire for wild strawberries, sunshine on my naked body. A man’s mouth against mine. The warmth of his breath. The weight of his body pressing against me and the softness of his hair as I ran my hands through it. So many senses, tastes and experiences that I was ignorant of – and longed for!

  A girl’s laughter chimed from the garden – yes, on this day of sunshine, even Thomasina was happy. I walked into the kitchen. The icebox was making its usual dripping sound, and music drifted from the front room – an American jazz tune. I noticed that the kitchen was spick and span, thanks, no doubt, to Angel. A ham hung from the ceiling beams by a large hook and cheese lay in a dish on the bench. The door to the cellar was open. I glanced at it, remembering Thomasina’s wild tale. There did appear to be a strange smell drifting up the cellar stairs – for a second I imagined I heard a low snarl, and the clanking of a chain. I put it down to my active imagination.

  From the open back door I looked into the yard. The family was indeed outside. I could smell the overwhelming fragrance of jasmine. The bulky new sculptures Pearl had ordered of her Bindi-eye Men were still wrapped in paper. The girls chased each other with butterfly nets; they both looked angelic in pink lace dresses with moss-green bows in their hair. Maxwell sat on the ground where they’d obviously been enjoying a tea party. Several dolls were set up beside him on a white tablecloth which hosted tiny china cups and plates with cake crumbs and discarded sandwich crusts. Pearl was lying down, her head in Maxwell’s lap. She wore a large sunhat and he was feeding her grapes. Beside him sat Angel in a sky-blue skirt and a white cotton blouse patterned with pink roses. I stared, struck by the evident familiarity between the three of them. They resembled some glorious Monet painting dappled in the sunshine. Emily looked far more beautiful than I had remembered. Where did she get the money for those pretty clothes? As I watched, Maxwell handfed her some grapes too; she opened her mouth for the fruit, and then chewed greedily. I stood there, unnoticed by the trio, and felt jealousy stabbing my heart. Maxwell had never fed me in such an intimate manner. Why was Emily, a mere servant, so favoured?

  Maxwell reached out and caressed Emily’s face as Pearl watched, smiling. None of them seemed to care that the little girls were nearby. His hand slipped to Emily’s shoulder and then slowly to her large breast, groping it as she chewed her grapes. Lechery had altered his handsome, familiar face. Pearl laughed as he kneaded the thing and he bent his head to kiss his wife. He was no longer the kind, gentlemanly and loving Maxwell that I knew.

  Unable to bear more I slipped away, still holding the stupid recipe, tears streaming down my face. As far as I knew, they had no idea I had ever been there.

  When I returned home, my mother exclaimed aloud at my tear-streaked face. I ran to my room, sobbing and clutching my childhood teddy bear. That was where my mother found me.

  ‘What has she done this time?’ she said, rubbing my back. Her face was sour and pinched with anger.

  I told Mother everything, although I knew it was dangerous to give her such knowledge. As I expected, she puffed up with toad-like fury, crossed herself and then shook me hard, begging me not to return to Poet’s Cottage. She said she would go to the priest to divulge this latest evidence of Pearl’s corruption to him. Spittle flew from her mouth as she ranted and raved. I held on to her skirt, begging her not to tell anyone. I knew if Father Kelly visited Poet’s Cottage and let slip that I had reported their sordid relationship Pearl would never speak to me again. And that would mean no more Maxwell, either. Maxwell, whom I had loved and respected for so long. A life without him was unthinkable. As soiled as he now was in my mind, I was already telling myself that Angel and Pearl had corrupted him. They were both without virtue and all men were weak when faced with the temptation of loose women.

  Mother kept screeching about the fires of hell scorching their souls. I wept inconsolably, rocking back and forth. I sobbed and pleaded with Mother not to break my confidence. I felt as though a way of life I’d glimpsed briefly was lost to me forever. I don’t know if Mother ever carried out her threat to go to Father Kelly. I was too embarrassed over my lack of control to bring it up with her.

  Perhaps the foolish girl did offend her employers, because overnight it seemed that Angel had fallen from grace. The first hint came when I saw Angel and the girls a week later in High Street. I stopped to greet them and couldn’t help noticing a tense, strained air about the three of them. Thomasina’s hair looked even more shocking than it had on the beach. I shivered as I imagined the rage Pearl must have felt to hack off her daughter’s hair so savagely. Angel wore a light cotton floral frock with a straw hat and gloves. A garish dark violet bruise circled one eye. I waited for her to comment on her injury, but she failed to satisfy my curiosity with an explanation. As we stood in the hot midday sun there was an odd expression in Marguerite’s eyes, as if she wished to convey some message to me. Thomasina, of course, was her usual unruly self. She spent the entire time pulling faces at me behind Angel’s back. Such an irritating child! As sorry as I felt for her, I also longed to smack her backside, and hard.

  Angel prattled on nervously about the weather (far too hot for this time of year). I agreed that a scorching-hot Christmas Day would be dreadful. Finally, unable to resist, I had to ask. ‘Have you been involved in an accident, Angel?’

  The wretched girl looked at me slyly. ‘Accident? Yes, I bumped into a door a few nights back.’

  I gave her a hard stare. ‘Really? How odd. I’ve never seen such an injury from a door.’ I remembered my mother’s words about Angel giving herself airs and making ‘sheep’s eyes’ at Maxwell and felt a jolt of anger towards her. How could she, a lowly, vulgar, uneducated girl, with her rough vowels and common ways, presume to have any relationship with Maxwell? I thought again of his hand on her breast – the way she’d chewed on the grapes like some fat cow chewing its cud as he’d touched her – and I wanted to strike her too.

  ‘Come on, Angel!’ Thomasina pulled at the girl’s hand. ‘Waspy will be furious if we’re late.’

  Waspy? Pearl’s new nickname, I supposed. Angel was already privy to a secret nickname that I was excluded from.

  When Thomasina spoke, Angel started in fear and grabbed the girls’ hands as if to hurry them away. Marguerite stood there for a moment staring at me. ‘Are you coming to visit us soon, Aunty Birdie?’

  ‘Don’t be a baby,’ Thomasina said. ‘She’s not our real aunty. She’s just . . . nobody really.’

  She’s nobody. I stood watching them as they walked away and wondered where that particular expression had come from. Was Thomasina repeating something Pearl had said?

  A couple of weeks before Christmas, inspired by the season of goodwill to all, I decided to extend the hand of friendship and visit Poet’s Cottage. Maxwell opened the door to me, dressed in his cricket whites. ‘Birdie! Where have you been, gorgeous girl? It seems a total age since we saw you! Pearl was asking after her Tricky the other day.’

  ‘I’ve been working at Blackness House,’ I said, which was the truth. I thought how handsome Maxwell looked in white. I heard the typewriter clacking upstairs and voices from the kitchen. ‘Is this a bad time, Maxwell?’

  ‘Lord no, never a bad time for you, Tricky. Come on in. Pearl’s working but we can talk in the kitchen. Have you seen any ghosts yet at Blackness?’

  We entered the kitchen to find a bored-looking Violet Bydrenbaugh, dressed in a lilac dress and with bright red lips, sitting opposite Teddy Stephens at the table. ‘I must say, I do think it’s tedious of Pearl to invite me around here and then just disappear to write,’ she whined. ‘She said she was only going to be ten minutes and she’s been nearly an hour! It’s not as if I haven’t got better things to do.’

  I sat down at the table next to her and she gave me a chilly nod. She obviously still hadn’t forgive
n me for enthusing over history the last time we’d met.

  ‘You both remember my chum, Birdie?’ Maxwell said.

  Teddy Stephens grunted his assent. I wondered why he was there. Did Maxwell really not care that Pearl openly flaunted her infidelity? Where was his pride? Did he love Pearl so much he would forgive her anything? I could smell alcohol on the fisherman’s breath, despite the early hour. I studied his face, wondering why Pearl found him attractive. To me he was coarse; not handsome and cultured like Maxwell. And Teddy could barely string five words together.

  ‘I saw you the other day,’ Violet said to me. ‘Poking about near the old chapel at Blackness House. You’d best be careful. There’ve been nests of tiger snakes found in the old graveyard. Not to mention the ghosts.’

  ‘It’s peaceful there,’ I countered. ‘Ghosts don’t bother me, or snakes.’ It’s the living I’m afraid of, I thought.

  Violet gestured at the homemade paper chains and saucers of glue paste covering the kitchen table. ‘I came over to help Pearl and the girls make Christmas decorations but of course they’ve all been boring and run away. Pearl had the muse descend like a buzzing wasp and had to rush up to capture some ridiculous Kenny tale. She’s always going on about how much she hates Kenny but she can never seem to tear herself away from the bloody bird.’ She tapped a cigarette from a gold case and Teddy and Maxwell rushed to light it. ‘And what are you doing here? Visiting Pearl or Maxwell?’ Her eyes sparkled with malicious enjoyment.

  ‘Both. I’m returning a book I borrowed.’ I attempted to sound calm and confident but couldn’t help being hurt by her evident dislike of me. What had I ever done to Violet Bydrenbaugh that she should speak to me with such spite? Was it my fault I wasn’t of the same class as her? How I despised people like Violet – born with all the advantages I longed for: money, education, access to culture and trips overseas. Violet, who possessed all the confidence that came with being born with a silver spoon in her mouth when I felt so inferior.