Poet's Cottage

by Josephine Pennicott

  Sadie settled herself in the old nursery, which she was planning to turn into an office, where boxes of books and papers waited to be unpacked. A couple of hours flew by and she managed to finish one article, putting it aside to reread later that afternoon. She closed the laptop, stretched, and went downstairs to grill the fish.

  Maria arrived at midday, clutching a couple of bottles and the ice-cream. ‘It’s so hot, it’s probably melted,’ she complained. ‘There’s been bushfires down south. You look very pretty! I love that dress.’ Sadie was wearing a fifties-style dress with a retro print of Paris street scenes. ‘What a cute print,’ Maria said as Sadie did a twirl. ‘This house is divinely cold, isn’t it?’

  Sadie had to admit the house was freezing. On a day like this it was a welcome escape from the searing heat – but there was something enervating about the frigid temperature, as if the air crept into your bones and settled there, bringing with it a strange lethargy.

  ‘I saw Gracie this morning and she donated her home brew to us. She said she had a dental appointment.’ Maria held out the two bottles.

  Sadie had prepared a green salad with olives, crumbly fetta and a crusty baguette from the bakery. Deciding to eat in the garden, she carried everything outside, setting out glasses for Gracie’s homemade wine, and called for Betty to join them.

  Her daughter poked her head out of Thomasina’s door. ‘No, Mum! We’re talking here,’ she said. ‘I’ve had some of Thomasina’s curried scallops. They were really nice.’ She disappeared again, then emerged a minute later with a small covered dish. ‘Thomasina sent you some to try. They’re delicious!’

  Sadie decided to serve the small serves of steaming scallops in their curry paste as an entrée. ‘Come on, eat up!’ she said to Maria. They ate the simple meal, Maria filling her in on all the local gossip.

  ‘I hoped Gracie would come,’ Sadie said. ‘I invited her but she didn’t reply.’

  ‘Oh, you know Gracie. She’s sulking like a three-year-old over Gary. Give her time, she’ll come around. She’ll be sorry she missed dessert.’ Maria grinned as she spooned up the last of the ice-cream. ‘Did you like Simon?’ she asked abruptly. ‘He seemed quite taken with you.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Sadie opened the second bottle of Gracie’s wine. ‘He seemed quite brusque, I thought. I had the feeling he didn’t approve of me at all. I could barely get more than ten civil words out of him.’

  ‘That’s how I know he was taken with you.’ Maria smiled. ‘As I said at the market, it’s not my business and I won’t go on about it if you do take up with Gary. But I’d hate to see him destroy the life of another friend of mine. And people talk here. It’s the worst aspect of a small town. The tongues are already wagging since you were spotted outside the shearing shed with him.’

  ‘It’s okay, Maria,’ Sadie said. ‘I admit when I first met Gary I found him a little attractive. But he’s really not my type. I just wish Gracie would stop chasing after him and forgive me for whatever she thinks I’ve done. I miss her!’

  Maria picked up her glass. ‘To absent friends,’ she toasted. As they clinked glasses, Sadie wondered what her grandmother would have made of all this salacious town gossip. Some things never changed over the decades. People were always hungry to discuss sex and scandal.

  ‘Well, I must be off,’ Maria announced reluctantly. ‘Why don’t we make a date to start painting that cellar? It seems a shame to just leave it to the spiders and dust.’

  ‘Maria, do you believe in ghosts?’ Sadie felt foolish even asking the question of her practical-minded friend.

  ‘I do,’ Maria replied, surprising her. ‘In fact, I saw a ghost once in the Pirates Nest, shortly after we bought it. Before that I’d have thought people who claimed to see ghosts were a bit touched or something. But there she was in the upstairs bedroom as plain as I can see you. Some sort of maid, tucking in the bed, with a long white apron and old-fashioned clothes. I cried out when I saw her, and she looked around as if she couldn’t see me – then she faded away. It was so bizarre. I called her Rhonda and we hoped to see her again, but no luck. Still, the guests always love to hear about our spirit maid.’

  ‘Do you think this house is haunted?’ Sadie asked.

  Maria glanced around. ‘Everyone says it is, because of Pearl being killed here. It is cold inside. I don’t know. I’d have to see her before I believed in it!’ Maria laughed. ‘Still, Pearl was a strange one, wasn’t she?’ She waved a hand towards the garden statues. ‘Her stories are pretty dark. All those Bindi-eye Men devouring things. I think a lot of creative people are a bit cracked.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Thomasina doesn’t seem the full sandwich as well, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  After Maria had left, Sadie sat in the garden for a while trying not to think about the waiting articles. It was so tempting to nap in the summer heat; the alcohol had made her drowsy. Through drooping eyelids, she gazed at the Bindi-eye Men statues with their upraised fists and open shouting mouths. As a small child she’d had nightmares when Marguerite had first read her the stories. Marguerite had hidden the books after that but of course fear was part of the stories’ appeal for the young Sadie. While she preferred the books of Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Edith Nesbit and Ethel Turner, the characters in Pearl’s dark and twisted Silver Valley Tales had stayed with her. It felt strange to think that her grandmother had composed some of those stories in the very place where Sadie now sat.

  Her eyes closed and she saw Pearl, sitting scribbling furiously, the children playing nearby, wrapped up against the cold. A part of Sadie’s brain was fully aware she was in the present time; she could hear Thomasina and Betty laughing from the house. Then she heard the faint strains of an old jazz song, ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ ’; Thomasina must have the radio on, she thought. As the sun lulled her into an increasingly drowsy state, Sadie saw a different scene from this same garden, of Pearl standing smoking in the white snow and frost as her children built a snowman.

  ‘What is Angel’s apron doing on that thing?’ A handsome young Maxwell had joined her. ‘Hell! It’s cold out here! Come inside, darling.’

  Pearl laughed. She was even more beautiful in Sadie’s dream than any photo. Her skin was luminous, her eyes enormous and dark. Yet for all her beauty there was something hard and brittle about her. A fragility, like twigs made of glass.

  ‘I think it suits Miss Frosty more than it ever suited her. And where she’s gone, she won’t be needing it, will she, Miss Frosty? For God’s sake, Maxwell, it’s just a joke! He has no sense of humour, has he, Miss Frosty?’

  ‘Come inside, girls!’ Maxwell called. ‘You’ll turn into ice blocks.’

  A bird uttered a harsh cry from above. Pearl glanced up at it, and Sadie momentarily glanced up too, seeing stark, witchy, black-bare arms of trees reaching upwards. Something in the movement and the position of Pearl’s neck, her black bob against the grey-blue wintery sky, reminded Sadie of the Bindi-eye Men.

  ‘Darling, don’t!’ She heard Maxwell’s alarmed voice.

  Sadie cried out. Pearl was coming towards her, her face twisted with malice. She held a stick in her hand, raised above her head. ‘How dare you, you little bitch!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t you dare ignore me. Look at me when I’m talking to you!’ The stick came down hard on Sadie’s back.

  Sadie opened her eyes, sick and disoriented. She was still sitting in the garden, and Thomasina and Betty were standing looking at her.

  ‘Mum? Are you alright? You were screaming.’ Betty looked upset. ‘Did you have a nightmare? You were calling Thomasina’s name.’

  ‘I was?’ Sadie glanced at Thomasina, who stared at her with a curious expression. ‘I think the wine affected me. I had a strange dream.’ Sadie looked back at Betty, and had to fight the urge to leave Poet’s Cottage straightaway, to pack their bags and go to Sydney. She could still see the look of hatred on Pearl’s face and feel the stick coming down upon her back. The dream had seemed so real.

  Sadie jumped as Tho
masina suddenly stamped her gum-booted foot on the ground.

  ‘Wasp,’ she said. ‘Better to kill the bastard.’

  Sadie stood up, her legs shaky. The sun must have got to me, she thought. The wasp struggled feebly on the ground, its guts half out of its tiny body. Thomasina squashed the insect again.

  ‘Better to kill them quickly,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Sadie felt the ground rushing up to meet her as she did something she had previously only read about in books. She fainted.

  Blackness House

  Sadie was dimly aware of Betty and Thomasina assisting her upstairs to her bedroom and putting her into her nightgown. She lay on the bed, feeling the walls of her room sway while her daughter arranged a blanket over her. ‘I’ll be alright, don’t fuss,’ she kept insisting but they ignored her. Thomasina dabbed a wet flannel awkwardly at Sadie’s face. If Sadie hadn’t felt so ill, she would have laughed at her aunt’s earnest expression.

  ‘Just rest, Mum. We’ll get a doctor in to look at you.’ Betty’s voice came from the ceiling, or from another star. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

  Sadie tried to get up from the bed but the walls lurched in and she collapsed once more.

  Music played faintly. Sadie saw the squashed wasp and then Pearl’s furious face as she raised the stick. Maria laughing as they toasted each other in the garden – and the Bindi-eye statue with his arm raised upwards, stone fingers stretching towards her. Then Maxwell’s laughing face floated into her consciousness. He was dancing with Pearl, her long skirts swaying as they waltzed. He was weak. He was so weak. She saw the cellar steps and somebody rushing up them – Angel the maid. She was crying, holding her apron in her hand. Thomasina, the child, stood behind Sadie. She held the icepick from the icebox, and her hands were covered in blood. Maxwell laughed as he twirled with Pearl to some jaunty jazz tune.

  Sadie walked out into the garden. The Bindi-eye statue was gone; in his place stood Birdie Pinkerton. ‘Come closer.’ She smiled. ‘Step nearer and I’ll weave you a tale.’ She held out her hand covered with what looked like black hair dripping blood. ‘Come here, Pearl,’ she said.

  Pearl? She wasn’t Pearl! Sadie thrashed around in the bed.

  Voices. Betty was talking to somebody, sounding distressed; was it Kenny Kookaburra with a stethoscope around his neck? It all seemed to make perfect sense in a twisted way.

  When Sadie woke up, all was peaceful. The curtains were open and she could see the night sky sprinkled with stars. The house was quiet but she knew that there was somebody standing in her room. The cloaked woman. Sadie cried out, ‘Who are you? What do you want from me?’ She recoiled as she saw glowing in the darkness the twisted white mass of that monstrous face. The woman moaned. Sadie tried to rise from the bed but she was still too weak to move. She could only stare in terror as the cloaked figure rushed from the room.

  Betty came into the room, turning on the lights.

  ‘She’s in the house!’ Sadie yelled. ‘Phone someone to search the house!’ She sank back into the bed which appeared to swallow her up.

  Soon there were more noises, some shouting, and suddenly Simon Parish was looking down at her. ‘She’ll be alright,’ he said. ‘It must have been a bug. Maria’s down with it too. Let’s just clean these sheets up, shall we? Can you hold that for me, Betty?’

  Sadie wanted to call out to him, to tell him that she wasn’t alright and that there was a malevolent cloaked ghost wandering around the house. ‘B-B-Betty,’ was the only word she managed to say.

  ‘It’s okay, Sadie,’ Simon said in a surprisingly kind tone. ‘Betty’s safe. There’s nobody in the house. You’ve been a bit delirious. Help me to stand your mother up, Betty.’

  And I’m most definitely still delirious, Sadie decided a few minutes later as she succumbed to the deep sleep that soon engulfed her. For her feverish brain had conjured up not only the cloaked monstrous woman, but also a gentle and caring Simon Parish.

  In the morning, Betty woke her mother with a cup of tea.

  ‘I had the strangest dream last night, darling.’ As Sadie began to describe her dream, Betty stared at her as if she was mad.

  ‘It was real, Mum,’ she said. ‘He was here. You told me to call somebody after you saw the ghost and I was so frightened I phoned Maria. She was sick, her husband was in Launceston and Simon was looking after her. When I explained what had happened he came around. He searched the entire house for me. He seems really lovely for a headmaster. You don’t remember any of it? You were totally raving! He probably thinks you’re a loony,’ she added happily.

  Sadie felt a tidal wave of embarrassment. ‘He saw me in my nightgown?’ She looked down at her antique white neck-to-knee nightie, giving thanks she didn’t sleep in some diaphanous negligee or Flintstones pyjamas.

  She decided against remonstrating with her daughter. Betty must have been genuinely frightened by her mother’s second ghost sighting. It was bad enough when Marguerite had died. Then, both Betty and Jack believed Sadie had lost her mind. She hated the thought that she had worried her daughter again and couldn’t help being grateful that Jack had already left for Sydney. In spite of his new conversion to supernatural phenomena, he might have decided to take Betty with him if he had been witness to more supernatural talk.

  She remembered the kookaburra with the stethoscope. ‘You didn’t happen to call a doctor, did you?’ she asked.

  Betty nodded happily, proud of her efficiency. ‘Yep, some old guy came from the hospital. He was short with grey hair. He checked you out and couldn’t see anything obviously wrong. He said it was probably a gastric bug or food poisoning. Maria was sick last night as well, and so it was most likely the fish you ate. It was a good job I didn’t eat any of it!’ she finished triumphantly. ‘You know you vomited everywhere in the bedroom? Simon and I had to wash all the sheets.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Sadie held up a warning hand, wondering how she could ensure that she never had to face Simon Parish again. Her stomach contracted at the thought of the food she had shared with Maria. ‘I’m never eating fish again,’ she vowed.

  ‘It might have been the scallops,’ Betty said. ‘I know seafood can make you really ill but Thomasina and me are okay. I wonder if Maria threw up as well? Poor Simon, having to clean you both up.’

  ‘Enough, Betty!’

  Later that morning Sadie phoned Maria, who had quickly recovered from her overnight illness and was her usual chirpy self. Sadie apologised if her meal had brought on the sudden attack. Maria reassured her that she was feeling perfectly healthy and seemed to find the whole affair amusing. ‘Thank God Simon was around. He’s missed his vocation. Lucky Allister was in Launceston – he’s totally useless when it comes to sickness. Simon would have had him on his hands as well!’ She was still eager to come around to paint the cellar so they made a date for the following weekend. On impulse, Sadie asked her for Simon Parish’s number. It would only be polite to thank him for his help.

  She had hoped to get a recorded message; to her dismay, he picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Yes?’ He sounded curt and tired and Sadie felt herself blushing as she stammered out her thanks.

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I was glad to be of service. Your daughter was very frightened.’ His tone sounded as if he thought her a bore of a woman who had irresponsibly frightened her daughter by having hysterics over imaginary ghosts.

  She hung up, feeling foolish. Damn the man and his brusque manner! Why did he have to be the one Betty contacted?

  Deciding to try to work, she headed out to the garden with a notebook and a pile of the Pencubitt Historical Society magazines for research. An hour passed quickly as she set out a rough plan for her unfinished article on bizarre historical tales for an English magazine she regularly contributed to. As she flicked through a journal from 1938, marvelling over the illustrated fashion advertisements, she came across an article about Blackness House.

  Blackness House – the Curse
Strikes Again!

  Investigators are still sifting through the damage caused by the recent fire at Blackness House in search of clues to the origins of the blaze which gutted the recently remodelled chapel. Violet Bydrenbaugh, the only daughter of Mrs Diana Agatha Jean Bydrenbaugh and the late Mr Charles Frederick Bydrenbaugh, suffered severe burns in the fire. She remains at Launceston General Hospital but it seems likely the young woman will be removed to Melbourne Hospital for further treatment.

  Due to the extensive nature of the unfortunate woman’s injuries, it is impossible to determine from her how the blaze started. There was initial speculation a candle might have set alight the bed where she slept.

  Malice has not yet been ruled out: a team of professional investigators from Hobart were hired at great expense by Mrs Bydrenbaugh to determine whether the fire was deliberately lit.

  However, ask any local tradesman who has worked at Blackness House for their opinion on the matter and you will receive the same reply – it’s the curse of Blackness striking again.

  It is well known in Pencubitt that the Bydrenbaugh family have found it difficult to keep labourers on the site. Most workmen have put down their tools and walked off the job in fear of the ‘ungodly and strange goings-on’ at the house. Mrs Bydrenbaugh has been forced to bring in workmen from further afield and even they did not stay for long. Workmen have complained of tools being stolen or moved, a ‘presence’ amongst them blowing on their necks, pulling their hair and stealing their lunches. Most declined to be interviewed for this article, saying only that ‘Blackness House deserves its name and reputation and that they wouldn’t set foot there again for all the tea in China’.