The House of Whispers

by Laura Purcell

I spread out a sheet of vellum and sprinkled it with violet water. As I began to grind and blend the ingredients for Violet Strasbourg snuff upon it, I seemed to wake from a dream, my skin hot and cold by turns. What in the name of God was I thinking?

  I could not feed Lady Rose an abortifacient. I knew what a baby meant to her. Had I forgotten those desperate tears, the day she had stood on Westminster Bridge and yearned for the waters to take her? If she miscarried, Mrs Windrop and Burns would smirk, triumphant. Sir Arthur . . . I was not sure how it would move him. But he suspected me, that much was certain. Poisoning my mistress would be playing straight into his hands.

  And of course, Mrs Friar was no fool. How had I not considered that? Surely, she would investigate the tisane or at least be able to guess at its contents. There was little chance of my emerging unscathed with her watching my actions.

  It had been an evil, stupid thing. A moment of madness. Of course I could not do it! I loved her. Truly, I did.

  I tipped the snuff into the box and snapped the lid shut, as if that were an end to the matter.

  A fresh tisane would need to be brewed; my lady would be impatient, ask what had taken me so long. But I could endure her harsh words. Better that than to see her lovely face crumpled in pain and anguish.

  Walking back into the kitchen, I went to the table, ready to pour the diabolical mixture down the privy where it belonged.

  The Willow pattern cup had gone.

  Foolishly, I wiped my eyes, expecting the view to change. It did not. I even crouched down and looked beneath the table. There was only dust and crumbs, no trace of my sin.

  Sweat ran down the back of my neck. The fire felt outrageously hot.

  A scullery maid must have cleared it away; that was the only explanation. Some officious girl who saw the cup there and thought it had been discarded. Well, she had executed my task for me. So long as the thing was gone.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, I brewed something better for my mistress from peppermint leaves. My slick hands fumbled to perform their tasks. I still felt warm, a little feverish, as if I had survived a great ordeal. I suppose I had.

  I daresay the tisane I botched together was of an indifferent quality. I never found out. For when I opened the door to the kitchen, Burns was standing on the other side.

  She wore the black dress I had noted that first day. Her face did not match its sombre hues. She was vivid, alive with something thoroughly repellent.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said.

  A grin crept up her cheek. ‘Did she ask for another one already?’

  ‘Another . . . ?’

  She gestured at the cup in my hands. ‘It seems your mistress has a taste for poisonous herbs.’

  My mouth turned parchment dry. A low buzz started in my head. I stared, dumb, a partridge flushed out by dogs.

  ‘I saw the ingredients,’ she added maliciously. ‘One of your receipts, was it? No need to write it down. I committed every step to memory . . . just in case someone should ask me what you put in that cup.’

  ‘That was not for . . . I did not . . .’ I wet my lips and cleared my throat. ‘You are mistaken, Burns. I did not take that drink to Lady Rose.’

  ‘No. But I did.’

  I had only seen such exalting hate once before: at a public execution. Now I was there again, only this time the noose was around my own throat. The floor dropped away beneath my feet and I began to choke.

  ‘Careless, to leave it sitting about like that. I said as much to Lady Rose. Of course she defended you, expected you had forgotten it in your haste to mix her snuff.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘She has probably finished by now. You had better go and collect the cup.’

  I did the only thing I could: I flung the peppermint tisane in her face.

  She was too shocked to cry out. I heard her gasp, then a sound like a nut cracking as the cup and saucer fell to the floor.

  I pushed past her and I ran.

  My skirts tripped me on the stairs. Half-crawling, I grappled my way, up and up, to the servants’ quarters. There was no time to think of Lady Rose; it was already too late to stop her from taking the drink.

  Opening the wardrobe, I pulled out my trunk and flung a gown and some caps on top of the travelling dress. There was a little money in my reticule, wages from last quarter and odd coins which Lady Rose had given me to fetch ribbons and bonbons. I had a hip flask for water and the full snuffbox. It was all I dared stop to pack.

  I crammed a bonnet on my head, not bothering to fasten the ties. I could not be caught. I could not bear to see the hurt creasing her face when she found out what I had done.

  Heaving the trunk under my arm, I barrelled out of the room and down the stairs. Any moment now, the footmen would come running, or the housekeeper would appear. Burns would waste no time in telling her tale, of that I was sure.

  Without a backward glance, I raced past the marble pillars and out of the front door.

  Part 3

  Protection

  Chapter 13

  I must have fallen asleep. Merryn no longer lies in bed beside me. It is achingly cold.

  Only the promise of laudanum spurs me to sit up and gaze blearily around. Darkness reigns, but that means nothing in the winter. In all likelihood it is morning and time for me to wake Miss Pinecroft. If, indeed, she has not frozen solid in the night.

  Dampness has pervaded the room; I feel it on the floorboards and even on my trunk as my weary fingers fumble with the lock. Strange, how moisture can make the atmosphere thick and heavy. Everything smells of sitting water.

  Despite spending a night wrapped in the folds of my clothes, the hip flask is chill and hurts my hands. Shivering, I put it to my lips. The bitter taste of opium, undisguised by the druggist’s valiant additions of saffron and cinnamon, stops me from swigging it like gin. One sip shall suffice.

  I have heard of invalids misjudging the dose and consuming such vast amounts of laudanum that they cease to respire. They simply drown in dreams. I think, perhaps, that I understand how they could make such an error.

  One of my gowns is clean; I have only the three in total. The bloody travelling dress squats at the bottom of the box like a toad. Will the maids wash the laundry here or send it out? Either way the sight of my dress is bound to cause suspicion. Even if I explain how the stains came to be there, they will see that the material is costly, too good for me.

  Merryn has left me water in the ewer, but the thought of washing in such damp conditions raises gooseflesh on my arms. Instead, I brush my skin and apply a dab of lavender before changing my shift.

  Tiny pebbles of liquid shine upon the side of my trunk. I close the lid, pause. The same marks are upon the surface, like raindrops.

  ‘Just what sort of unwholesome room has Mrs Quinn confined me to?’ I mutter.

  In answer comes the noise I heard yesterday: high and ethereal. For all its sweetness, it unsettles me, touches a nerve I was not aware I possessed.

  Whatever can it be? Does it emanate from inside the house or further afield?

  Kneeling on the bed, I push back the curtains at the window and search for a clue outside. Frost marbles the glass. Only black lies beyond. Just now, it feels as if there is nothing past that darkness. We are abandoned here.

  Then I see the light.

  Quivering, very faint. Almost as if it came from below the water.

  Squinting, I rub the sleeve of my gown against the glass. It produces no effect.

  The light dips and sways. It has the same strange, entrancing quality as the noise. I wish I could see it clearly.

  Could it be fishermen out at sea? A lamp might explain the glow, but I would not be able to hear the men singing over this distance.

  All at once, the light blinks out.

  I am left strangely hollow. The darkness is blinding without it.

  Disconcerte
d, confused, I turn back to the room. And I realise that the sound has stopped also.

  Everything is silent.

  I shake myself, climb off the bed. Perhaps I did take a drop too much laudanum.

  Either that or not enough.

  By the time I arrive in the kitchen, Merryn has stoked the fire and begun to bake.

  ‘Good morning,’ I say as I stifle a yawn. ‘I am come to wake the mistress. I believe that eight o’clock is her time?’

  She turns to me. Her face is sprinkled with flour. ‘Good morning, Miss Why. How deep thee do sleep! I was afeared I’d wake thee earlier, but there was no chance of that.’

  She speaks good-naturedly and I cannot take affront.

  ‘It was all the travelling that fatigued me, I expect. Tell me, Merryn, were you mixing chocolate for Miss Pinecroft yesterday? I should like to take her something hot.’

  Something to make up for my heinous behaviour last night.

  ‘I make the mistress a cup every day.’ Merryn nods at her caked hands and apron. ‘Be about it soon . . .’

  ‘Please don’t rush. I can do it.’ I move to the cupboard she opened yesterday. Sure enough the pan has returned to its place, scoured clean. ‘The chocolate can be my task from now on. One less chore for you to perform.’

  ‘Kind of thee,’ she says, returning to her dough. ‘That’ll just leave Miss Rosewyn.’

  My hand quakes minutely as I set the pan down and find the chocolate cakes.

  ‘If you like,’ I venture, trying to sound careless, ‘I will make two today. I do not object to carrying a cup to Miss Rosewyn. Although I should have thought that would be Creeda’s responsibility. She is nursemaid, is she not?’

  Merryn grins at me as she kneads. Her birthmark flashes through the smears of flour on her cheek. ‘Curious, an’t thee? To see Creeda and the young mistress. Shouldn’t wonder. She be a queer one right enough.’

  My lips seem to have forgotten how to smile, but I try nonetheless. ‘I should certainly like to meet Creeda. She did not dine with us in the servants’ hall last night.’

  ‘Never do. For all that talk of fairies, I reckon she be away with un herself.’

  Now, what was the correct combination of spices? Cinnamon, nutmeg. Not cardamom. My eyes continue to search the labels for it, out of habit. The mixture smells wrong to me without that peppery kick.

  ‘Merryn, I happened to look out of our window before I came downstairs. I saw the strangest thing. It looked like a fishing boat, far out at sea. Does your father really put out in such weather?’

  A puff of laughter escapes her. ‘Nay, can’t be a fisher. Pilchards keep wide of this cove, don’t thee know? Naught but seaweed out there.’

  My pan of milk bubbles gently. I give it a stir. ‘No fish in the cove? How strange. I wonder why that should be?’

  Merryn shrugs, as if explaining such things to a stranger is impossible. ‘Folk all have a tale. Mermaids, Father says, but that be fishermen’s nonsense. S’pect the water went bad long ago. Could’ve been a body in the caves.’

  ‘A body?’

  ‘If the tide caught ’em,’ she elaborates. ‘Or a suicide. Body of a suicide’ll scare fish off like naught else.’

  Perhaps I do not wish to hear any more.

  ‘I did not realise there were caves upon the beach.’ Carefully, I pour the dark liquid into two separate cups. A dribble escapes – without thinking, I put out a finger to catch it and raise the tip to my mouth. The taste is sweet, deep. ‘Well, it is certainly not a place for sea-bathing.’

  Merryn chuckles again. ‘Hope it weren’t a French ship thee saw, Miss Why.’

  I doubt even Bonaparte, with his thirst for invasion, would consider this desolate place worth capturing.

  Placing both cups upon a tray, I turn and leave the kitchen.

  My hands are better now, almost steady – fortunate, for brilliant white surrounds my passage through the entrance hall.

  A smudge remains on the cup beside my left hand, and this vexes me. My finger must have smeared it as I stopped the chocolate from running. I never used to be prone to sloppiness.

  I shall give the smudged cup to the child. She will not remark upon it.

  Miss Pinecroft is precisely as I left her – slumped a little further down in the chair, perhaps. She does not appear to have moved all night. The chamber pot is empty and my footprints disturb a patina of dust that has settled upon the floor.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Pinecroft,’ I greet her cheerily, hoping to pretend last night simply did not happen. ‘How chilled you must be! I have fetched some chocolate to warm you.’ For a moment I hesitate, wondering if palsy will prevent her from taking the cup, but one withered hand gropes blindly towards me. I wrap her fingers around the warm china. They are like icy twigs.

  ‘I think, perhaps, once you have finished, that I will dress you in warmer clothes. Then we might sit by a fire in your bedchamber. I could read to you for a while. Should that be pleasant, madam?’

  Miss Pinecroft does not reply to my suggestions, only sips noisily at the chocolate through one side of her mouth.

  What keeps her here? She cannot be comfortable. The aspect is not pleasing. Some association of the mind, maybe?

  My father told me that a person can survive the apoplexy without material damage to their faculties. Others succumb entirely. It is difficult to know how much of Miss Pinecroft remains – and how much of it she is deigning to show me. Perhaps I have upset her, after all.

  I follow her gaze to the display of china. There is beauty in the collection, but no variation. Blue and white, white and blue. Monotonous. If there were a range of colours I might understand her attraction, especially on a grey morning such as this. Yet there is nothing.

  What can she see that I do not?

  Her watery eyes flick from side to side. Watching.

  ‘Have you everything you need for the present, Miss Pinecroft?’

  She nods.

  ‘Then may I take a brief leave of you?’ Shifting my footing, I proffer the tray in her direction. ‘I should like to deliver breakfast to your ward. Miss . . . Rosewyn.’

  Miss Pinecroft studies a teapot with peculiar intensity. I wonder if she can make out its shape.

  Beyond, the waves crash.

  ‘Miss Pinecroft?’ I repeat. ‘May I go?’

  She blinks, as if she had forgotten I was there. Then she nods once more.

  Irritation fuels my footsteps back to the entrance hall. I cannot even say what has vexed me. What did I expect after last night’s performance? For my new mistress to grasp both my hands as Lady Rose once did and tell me how glad she was to see me?

  Chocolate slops from the cup. Crying out, I come to an abrupt halt halfway up the stairs.

  Nothing has marked the spotless floor, but there is a mess upon my tray.

  What has come over me?

  Something knocks against the inside of my forehead. Not pain precisely, but an endless tap, tap of sorrow and need.

  I think of what Merryn said yesterday: that fairies knock in the chimney before the whole house comes falling down.

  There is only one thing I can do.

  I must fetch more laudanum.

  The chocolate looks cold. At least now I have the hip flask of laudanum concealed within my pocket where I can reach it at a moment’s notice. I shall not be caught out like that again.

  This is the path I trod with Mrs Quinn yesterday, past the brass pointer on the lock. Today I must go further, I suppose. There are not a great many doors. Miss Rosewyn must reside behind one of them.

  My feet echo upon the wooden boards: a lonesome sound to match this lonesome place. It seems strange, to me, to give a house a name. Morvoren. As if it were not just bricks and pebbles but a living thing.

  At the far end of the hallway, a door edges open. The ma
id, Lowena, emerges with a coal scuttle and brush. She is a raven-haired girl of a decidedly olive complexion. I thought, when we met briefly at the servants’ dinner yesterday, that she would look more at home under a Mediterranean sun than shivering out here at the end of the world. She certainly has an accent different from the others, but I cannot place it.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Miss Why.’ Gathering her skirts, Lowena makes an awkward jump before acknowledging me with a nod.

  Is she a child playing at scotch-hoppers? I have never seen behaviour like it. Perhaps Creeda is not the only servant in this house with queer ways . . . Lowena must note my expression, for she smirks as she passes.

  ‘Don’t disrupt the salt,’ she advises.

  Confused, I watch her walk down the staircase, swinging her scuttle, before I study the door.

  She has left it ajar. There is no detector lock here. Simple wood, polished with beeswax, a brass handle that shines. At first glance, it is the most ordinary of doorways . . . except for the thick white border on the threshold.

  Salt? I cannot think why someone would sprinkle it there . . .

  But suddenly it does not matter.

  Resonating from the room, sharpening my nerves, is the sound.

  My cheeks lift, my feet move forwards, before I am aware of authorising them to do so. Such ardour and promise in that sound . . . No, not a sound. At this proximity, I know it is a voice.

  Someone within the chamber is humming.

  Tentatively, I push the door open.

  The hum quivers and breaks into words. ‘Titsy tosty, tell me true, who shall I be married to?’

  The room unfolds before me, holding a cold bluish light. In the centre of the carpet is a round table spread with a variety of feathers, pebbles and flowers. Sitting before it, tearing pages from a book as she sings, is the girl.

  Only she is not a girl. Not a child, I mean.

  I think that she is older than me.

  The person does not match her song. Rosewyn has a bulk to her, a strange, shapeless quality like a woman made of snow. Her dress, cut short as a child’s, with pantalettes visible at the ankles, does nothing to diminish this. Brown hair hangs loose down her back, tangled into elflocks. Only in her face do I see a hint of beauty. Small, fine features. Eyes of china blue that match the walls in the corridors. She has an open, amiable look. She does not glance up from her work.