The House of Whispers

by Laura Purcell

  ‘And who might you be?’

  I start. It is a harsh voice, a seagull’s voice. Another drip of chocolate runs down the cup as I turn towards the speaker.

  She hunches in a chair close behind the door. Dressed in a black gown and a cap of old lace, she cuts a sinister figure, most unlike my mistress downstairs, although they must be of a similar age.

  Her skin, stretched taut over sharp lineaments, reminds me of parchment. Most extraordinary are the eyes trained upon me: one blue like Rosewyn’s, the other deep brown.

  ‘Oh, you must be Creeda.’ I sound brisk and jolly, but that is not how I feel. Her presence demands something. What, I cannot say. A curtsey perhaps, as I would give to Miss Pinecroft. I shall not grant it. Stepping deftly over the line of salt, I enter the room and stand before her. ‘My name is Miss Why. I have taken the position of personal maid to Miss Pinecroft. I believed you were aware of my arrival . . . at least, Mrs Quinn implied so.’

  Rosewyn’s chant floats into the silence between us. Creeda’s glare pins my feet to the floor.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Creeda demands.

  Perhaps she is deaf. ‘Did you not hear me?’ I say a touch louder, ‘I am Miss Why and—’

  ‘Your Christian name,’ she interrupts.

  ‘Est– Hester. Hester Why.’

  That gaze. I am naked before it. She can see the lies on my tongue, the laudanum flowing through my veins – I know she can.

  ‘Very well, Hester Why. You’ve brought Miss Rosewyn her breakfast, have you?’

  ‘Yes.’ My tone has lost its assurance. How pathetic the chocolate appears now. Spilt and cold, growing a skin. I wish I had let Merryn make it.

  ‘Give it to me.’

  Before I can object, Creeda reaches out one gnarly hand and takes the cup. She looks at the smudge, looks at me, and then turns the rim until she finds a clean part.

  Her thin lips seal over the edge and then work – silent, unlike Miss Pinecroft’s. What can she be doing? Sloshing it around her mouth? Tasting it for poison? Good God. What a house of strangers and misfits I have wandered into!

  ‘You may take it to Rosewyn.’

  Frowning, I receive the cup and wipe its rim on my apron.

  There is a fire burning in this room. The difference it makes to the atmosphere is remarkable. Irons hang neatly on their stand, the hearth is swept clean. A small jug of what appears to be cream or milk has been placed on the mantel.

  Rosewyn, the girl – woman – I do not know what to call her – must be simple, for she is destroying that book with relish. On the floor by her side lies a doll the size of a small lapdog. Real hair, similar in colouring to Rosewyn’s own, flows from beneath its straw bonnet. She is far too old for such toys.

  As I approach, she opens her mouth in a beatific smile.

  ‘Your breakfast, miss.’

  She removes the cup from the tray and takes a large gulp. Her mouth puckers. ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘I’m sorry, miss. I was detained. I can heat it over the fire if you would like me to?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I don’t mind.’

  She does – I saw the revulsion on her face. But she is being kind. Smiling again. Brown liquid clings to her lips.

  ‘Are you a visitor here?’

  ‘My name is Miss Why.’ It is as if they know repeating this lie will tarnish my soul. ‘I am a maid to your guardian, Miss Pinecroft.’

  She looks me up and down, without impertinence. I take the opportunity to assess her also. The cotton of her gown is pink but strangely matt and ridged. Around her shoulder, large stitches are visible. My eyes flick to her sleeve. The hem is turned up at her wrist. Yes, that is the trouble: she is wearing her dress inside-out.

  That is Creeda’s concern, not my own. What with this and the tangles in Rosewyn’s hair, it is clear the old woman is not discharging her duties. I wonder Mrs Quinn allows such negligence.

  Rosewyn’s assessment of me, it seems, is more pleasing. Taking my hand in her own, she gives it a firm shake.

  ‘Charmed,’ she says.

  It slaps the breath from me.

  She could not . . . Of course, she could have no idea. It is coincidence, mere coincidence, that she uses a similar word to the one Lady Rose did.

  Creeda clears her throat.

  I had forgotten her, watching. And had also forgotten the other old lady, frozen in place downstairs.

  ‘Is there anything else I can fetch you, miss?’

  Rosewyn shakes her head. ‘No. But I’ve got something for you.’

  Hastily, she bundles three of the thin ripped pages together and squashes them into a ball. This she offers to me with the air of a queen bestowing alms.

  ‘For protection.’

  Better to humour the poor thing, I suppose. Holding the tray by my side with one hand, I reach out and take the papers.

  ‘Thank you, miss.’

  Creeda’s unmatched eyes follow me all the way to the door. ‘Don’t disrupt the salt,’ she rasps.

  I will not degrade myself and leap as Lowena did. Striding across the threshold, I brush a few grains with the hem of my skirt. Creeda begins to tut, but I shut the door upon her.

  Well, Merryn did warn me they were quite mad.

  Taking the ball of paper, I go to stuff it in my apron.

  Stop.

  A word catches my eye.

  It is the name of Our Saviour.

  Astounded, I smooth the crumples from the paper, but I already know what I shall see. The Gospel of Matthew. Jesus walking upon the sea.

  My nausea returns.

  Rosewyn is sitting in there, gleefully tearing apart the Holy Bible.

  Chapter 14

  ‘An’t thee ever seen a bible-ball?’ Merryn’s bemused smile is tinged with pity. ‘I thought folk had every manner of thing in London.’

  We are sitting at the oaken table in the servants’ hall, awaiting our dinner. Aromas of butter and warm fish emanate from the kitchen where the cook, Mrs Bawden, carves up her famous Stargazey Pie – a dish I have yet to sample. The family ate mutton. I have already spent half an hour pulping meat and forking it into Miss Pinecroft’s mouth. What with that and the sacrilege before me, little of my appetite remains.

  ‘Of course we had Bibles in London, Merryn, and Salisbury too. But we would never dream of desecrating them in this wicked manner.’

  Mrs Quinn sits at the head of the table, as befits her rank. Rather than crying out aghast at the bundle of mangled Scripture I have produced, she appears embarrassed. Her eyes focus on a deep whorl in the wood of the table.

  ‘We lived near Bodmin Moor when I was young,’ Lowena tells me. To my eyes she is still extremely youthful, I cannot imagine what age she is referring to. I had thought, with her tawny skin and slight accent, that she might be one of the Spaniards fleeing from the Peninsular War, but clearly I was wrong. ‘Everyone in Bodmin used to take a bible-ball with them on a long walk, especially after dark. They didn’t mean any harm by it. They trusted its holiness to protect them.’

  That is what Rosewyn said: for protection. I wish a few torn pages could save me from my fears.

  ‘To protect them from what, Lowena?’

  ‘There are strange things on the moors. Noises and mists, lights.’

  ‘Lights?’ I sit forward with interest.

  ‘They seem to . . .’ She wiggles her fingers above the table ‘. . . float. Will-o’-the-wisp. If you follow them, you end up in a bog. People we knew drowned that way, Miss Why. Drowned in mud.’

  Her words conjure the sensation of soil on my tongue. Dinner seems a less and less appealing prospect.

  ‘How dreadful. But you do not truly believe that fairies led them astray? It was just a terrible accident, surely.’

  Lowena shrugs. ‘No, not really. Could be anything. A
trick of the eye. But Creeda and Miss Rosewyn, they’d believe it. They’d believe all sorts.’ Her dark glance drifts to Merryn and sparks with amusement. ‘We once thought we’d invent a fairy of our own and see if we could make them fear it . . .’

  She tries to tell me more, but the rest of her sentence dissolves under giggles. Merryn’s shoulders shake. The memory is clearly a comical one, and I find myself smiling with them. Mrs Quinn rattles out a quick, ‘Girls, remember yourselves!’

  Then Gerren, the man who drove me from Falmouth, lumbers into the hall and the laughter stops.

  He takes a seat at the other side of the table in silence. His jacket carries a fug of hay and pipe smoke. By daylight, he looks different. His wrinkles are like cracks in leather. I think it is exposure to the weather that has aged him, rather than long years. No one could suppose him a young man, but I would not place him far above fifty. He is certainly younger than my mistress.

  Mrs Quinn pours him a drink. ‘Get you warm, Gerren. It’s a chilly day’s work out there. A body’ll catch their death.’

  His thick lips twist, as if only women or delicate dandies would consider it cold today. ‘Nay. Been too hard at un for that. But me nose smells snow. Won’t be long afore I’m diggin’ me way out to that horse.’

  ‘True enough. I made Mrs Bawden salt some more pork so we’ve provisions laid by. Still, if it don’t start by Monday, we’d better do a last run to town. Miss Why, you’d be welcome to join us and gather any bits you need.’

  A spasm in my chest.

  The plan does not commend itself to reason: I should remain concealed. And yet . . .

  My mouth waters at the image of a dark green bottle filled with elation.

  Just one bottle to see me through the blizzards. I shall be able to manage if I can procure just one bottle of gin from town.

  Or perhaps two. For certainty.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Quinn. That is a sound idea. I may well need to call in at the apothecary.’

  Mrs Bawden shoulders her way through the door and plonks a dish in the middle of the table. I recoil.

  This is surely not dinner. It is an aquatic graveyard.

  Dead pilchards poke their heads out from holes in the piecrust. They grimace, as if they have been baked alive. Into each pained mouth Mrs Bawden has threaded a sprig of parsley.

  Seeing my hesitation, Gerren supposes I cannot reach the pie. He spoons a wedge onto my plate with a wet slap.

  Mrs Quinn forks a whole fish head into her mouth. The sound of her mastication makes my stomach turn. ‘Oh, that’s another thing, Miss Why,’ she says as she swallows. ‘I didn’t tell you about tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow . . .’

  ‘Sunday,’ she prompts.

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘We take Miss Rosewyn to church in the morning, but poor Miss Pinecroft isn’t strong enough.’

  More likely she refuses to leave her china collection. Her body was strong enough last night when it resisted my attempts to move her.

  ‘I don’t want to deprive you, Miss Why,’ she continues, ‘but I’d take it kindly if you stayed with her. I don’t like to leave her unwatched.’

  ‘Naturally.’ I cut up my pie. It is better this way. I have no wish for my face to become familiar to the locals. We shall be content together: she with her collection, me with my opioid. ‘I am quite willing to make sacrifices for the good of my mistress.’

  Paper crinkles as the bible-ball slowly begins to unfold in front of me.

  ‘ ’Tisn’t a great loss, for our good curate, Mr Trengrouse, is sure to come and administer the sacrament to the mistress. Sometimes he’ll pray with her or read a psalm. You see, we’re not so heathen as you think.’

  I cannot tell if this is playful or tart.

  ‘No, indeed. I never meant to imply otherwise.’ I still have not taken a bite of dinner. A pilchard leers on my plate, parsley dribbling from its lifeless lips.

  I am the first to ask Mrs Quinn to be excused. The need for my hip flask is knocking, knocking again. She grants my request happily, seeing only loyalty to my mistress.

  But as I rise to my feet, Gerren grabs my wrist.

  I am so shocked that I cannot speak. His weathered hand feels as rough as a shackle.

  ‘Forgetting aught, Miss Why?’

  For the first time, I notice a band of dirty metal on his ring finger – is this man then a husband? At any other time it would be comical to imagine him acting the lover, but now I can only shrink away with distaste from that hardened, calloused skin.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Mrs Quinn averts her eyes. The maids are absolutely silent.

  Unhurriedly, he leans across the table and picks up the bible-ball with his free hand. ‘Keep it. Keep ee safe.’

  He was not this solicitous for my welfare on the journey here. I would have much preferred his help with my trunk than this pagan offering.

  Why does Mrs Quinn not upbraid him?

  ‘Nonsense,’ I declare.

  Gerren narrows his eyes. He is taking the measure of me, but I cannot see his conclusions. He proffers the paper again.

  ‘It’s maids they want. Healthy-like. No blemishes. I’m thinkin’ they’ll be after ee.’

  ‘Now, now, Gerren . . .’ Mrs Quinn begins, but she does not have the courage to finish.

  I am unsure what amuses me most: that Gerren deems me young enough to be referred to as a ‘maid’, as the Cornish call their girls, or that he thinks I am without blemish. Then I catch sight of Merryn’s downcast eyes, the movement of her throat as she swallows, and all the laughter drains out of me. No one would call her unblemished. She will have endured teasing and worse, living with a port-wine stain like that. I wonder how Gerren can be so unfeeling.

  I snatch the bible-ball from him and pull my wrist free. ‘Sir, I have lived to the age of two-and-thirty without meeting the requirements of a human bride,’ I retort. ‘I have no reason to fear a supernatural suitor.’

  Turning my back on him, I stalk from the room, flinging the paper into the fire as I go.

  Chapter 15

  This room is always dark, but by candlelight it feels like a cavern. The china is strangely matt; the flames do not reflect in the glazed plates upon the wall. Only the odd varnished figurine throws out a glimmer.

  For all I am weary, I am restless. Sighing, I pass to the window. Miss Pinecroft protests if I open the curtains, but I find I can wind myself behind them, and look out while she sits, still as death, with her china. I take a drop of laudanum, but it does not warm me. I feel more fatigued than ever.

  Dusk has swallowed every inch of the sky. There is a peppering of stars, ice-bright. Somewhere below, the ocean soughs and moans.

  Here, without the curtain acting as a buffer, the chill is worse than ever, but still I watch, seeking the light. It is nowhere to be found.

  Perhaps I imagined it. I had just awoken, it might have been the remnant of a dream.

  As for the sound . . . Could it have been Rosewyn’s voice? When I first heard her hum, I believed so, but now I am unsure. It is hard to credit that the volume of a hum would travel across the house to the east wing. Yet what other explanation do I have?

  When I return to my seat by Miss Pinecroft, it feels marginally warmer by comparison with my station by the window. That is all that has changed. Everything is suspended, not even the candles flicker.

  The curved lines beneath Miss Pinecroft’s eyes look like flounces on the skirt of a dress; her other wrinkles resemble cracks upon a plate. All inanimate things. My new mistress has no more life than the china figurines.

  I have tried. No one, seeing me at work today, could find anything wanting in my efforts. I talked to her of the animals in the stables, of wildlife in general. I read aloud. The first canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage may have inspired the general p
ublic, but it does not move her.

  This is unknown to me. Always, whatever the circumstances, I find a way in. My first mistress prized me for my ability to seek out the best violet pastilles. To Miss Gillings, I was beloved as the only person who could colour her hair without leaving a trace of grey. That is my purpose: to be indispensable. But I doubt Miss Pinecroft would either notice or care were I to faint before her very eyes.

  The clock chimes, making me flinch. It seems to ping around the chamber, impossibly loud. Ten of the clock. Miss Pinecroft does not blink.

  ‘I will not leave you here,’ I say suddenly. ‘Not tonight. I am absolutely decided. It is too cold and I insist you retire to your bed.’

  To my astonishment, she inclines her head. No words, no change of expression – just that: a dip of the chin.

  Flustered, I rise to my feet and search in my apron for the key to her room. She must be conveyed now, before she has the chance to change her mind.

  She does not have the appearance of one cowed. As I approach her chair, I realise that this is not exactly victory. I have not persuaded her: instead she is humouring me.

  ‘May I help you to stand?’

  I reach to hoist her from the shoulders, but she brushes me away. Her venous hands grip the arms of the chair. Gradually, painfully, she winches herself up. Her skirts rustle, as if her legs are trembling beneath them.

  ‘Miss Pinecroft?’

  Releasing her hold on the chair, she takes two lumbering steps forward.

  It is excruciating to see her move: that unnatural, halting gait. She cannot maintain it for any length; taking my arm, she leans heavily against me.

  Since she retains the same position, day after day, and refuses to bathe, I would expect my mistress to be ripe with odour. She is not. She carries the scent that seems to pervade the air at Morvoren House: that of rosemary.