The Tenth Gift

by Jane Johnson

  The back of my neck prickled. “Is the manor house still here?”

  Alison hesitated. “It’s probably not what you expect.”

  I looked at her, waiting.

  “It’s … well, the Elizabethan house is still there, though it’s been renovated to within an inch of its life. They’re turning it into executive apartments.” She snorted. “As if there were a load of aspiring executives converging on Penzance. And the rest of it is a sort of holiday village now.”

  “A what?” I was horrified.

  She spread her hands. “You can’t blame people: Cornwall’s the poorest county in England. All that’s left down here is tourism and fishing, and precious little fishing, given all the EU restrictions and the foreign factory ships. People have to make their money in any way they can.”

  “I suppose so.” The picture she painted was rather different from the one I had been cherishing.

  “We could walk down there later, you could see it.”

  “Mmmm,” I said noncommittally. Sharp little shards of mundanity were beginning to puncture the illusion I had been happily constructing. Cat’s neat, secretive little jottings had been my escape from the unpleasant realities of the world. Poking around the place she had lived in meant sharing her with Alison, and I realized I didn’t want to share Cat with anyone.

  “What was her name again?” she muttered, flicking to the title page. Her eyes lit up. “Catherine Anne Tregenna. You know, I think there are Tregennas somewhere in our family. In fact, I’m sure there are. Or Tregunna. Or was it Tregenza? There’s a greengrocer in Penzance called Tregenza’s; then there’s Tregenna Castle at St. Ives. I wonder if we’re all related? I’ve got the family Bible somewhere.…”

  Her face fell.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s in the attic,” she said flatly.

  “Oh.” I didn’t feel like volunteering for that task.

  “I have to go up there again sometime, I suppose.…” She left the sentence hanging, as if I was meant to finish it in some way.

  I said nothing, but I felt her eyes on me like a weight.

  “I’ll go,” I said heavily at last. “If you can tell me where to look.”

  She stood on the landing at the bottom of the stairs while I went up, her hands clutching the newel post like claws.

  The attic space was as bright and fresh as the rest of the house, but a lot more untidy. A huge Velux window set into the hidden roof slope to the north of the house let in a wash of daylight for which I was profoundly grateful. Along one end ran Andrew’s desk, piled high with papers. The computer sat there blank-screened and resentful. No one had switched it on in the best part of a fortnight. The suicide note had, Alison had told me, been propped up against the monitor. In the center of the room ran a huge wooden beam. A length of rope remained attached to it, its end severed as if by a sharp knife—by the police, I imagined, since Alison said she’d not been able to bring herself to touch the body. I tried not to look at it, but my eyes kept straying back to it. It was bright blue, of some manmade fiber, nylon or polypropylene, and looked rough to the touch, hard to make a good knot with. I wondered where Andrew had learned what knots to tie, whether his fingers had fumbled as he pulled it tight. I imagined how its coarse texture would cut into the delicate skin of the neck, and had to push the thought away.

  “Can you see the boxes?” Alison called up, sounding falsely cheerful. “They should be beside the big wooden plan chest.”

  That at least was hard to miss: An old architect’s plan chest dominated one end of the room beneath the gable, three cardboard boxes in a jumbled tower beside it. The top one of these was thick with dust; they obviously hadn’t been opened in a while.

  I hoisted the top box down and opened it. Andrew’s face stared out at me, florid and grinning, and his presence suddenly filled the room. I dropped the box, and photos spilled over my feet. Alison and Andrew; Andrew and Alison—the AA, or “fourth rescue service,” as friends had jokingly termed them—a hundred, two hundred images of them together and taken singly; in groups at weddings, on boats, on holiday, in overalls working on the house: twenty years of bright Fujicolor history packed into a dusty old box.

  “Sorry!” I called down. “Dropped something.”

  I scooped the photos up and crammed them back into the box, averting my eyes from these images of another, better world. The second box contained old notebooks and diaries, a faded visitors’ book, but nothing that looked like a family Bible. That left the last box. I wrestled it open. Under a bundle of yellowing newspaper lay a huge, musty-smelling object. I levered it out. Its leather cover felt damp to the touch and it smelled of mildew, though the box and attic space seemed dry and weatherproof; it was as if it brought its own climate with it.

  “I’ve got it!” I called down. As I hefted it, something shifted from inside its back cover and several pages of foxed, brown-edged paper dislodged themselves. For a moment I thought the whole thing was disintegrating; then I realized the papers were loose: old letters, at a glance. I shuffled them carefully back inside the cover and took a last look around the attic space where Andrew Hoskin had taken his life. Despite the bright light streaming in through the window, it felt oppressive in the room, as if not only the beams and joists and tiles of the roof were bearing down on me, but also the sky, the stars, and the heavens beyond. Suddenly I felt a wash of utmost despair. I was a tiny, worthless speck of life in a huge universe. What did I think I was doing here? I was wasting my time, wasting my life. There was nothing for me here; indeed, possibly nothing for me anywhere. I had no job, no family, no man, no children, no prospects—and certainly would find none of them in Cornwall. Moreover, I was a woman, and faithless. The thought came to me, clear as a clarion call, that I should leave at once, just go away.

  Clutching the Bible, I fled down the stairs, already calculating the length of time it would take me to pack, call a taxi, and make my way to Penzance Station.

  “What on earth’s the matter?” Alison’s eyes were blue-rimmed and hollow. She looked like a stranger, an intruder in the house. All I wanted to do was to barge past her and get out.

  I put a hand out as if to push her away. “I—” And then the feeling passed. I blinked.

  She took the Bible away from me: I probably looked too unsteady on my feet to be carrying it. “Let’s go downstairs,” she said firmly, tucking the huge volume under her arm. She put her other arm around me. “You look in need of a cup of strong tea.”

  And just like that, she had switched from being the victim to the carer and I was the one in need of looking after. Perhaps, I reflected as I followed her down to the kitchen, that was just what she needed, this reversal in our roles.

  There were no Tregennas listed at the front of the family Bible. Lots of Pengellys and Martins, Johns and Bolithos, some Lanyons and Stephens and even a Rodda, a name I recognized from the tub of clotted cream Alison had in the fridge, but not a single Tregenna. I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

  CHAPTER 9

  CATHERINE

  July 1625

  An old Ægyptian woman came to the scullery door today. She came on a mule & was arrayed most strangely with bells & scarfs, her face & hands almost blacke …

  WHEN THE KNOCKING CAME AT THE SCULLERY DOOR, CATHERine was in the kitchen taking down a list of provender dictated by Lady Harris. The air was thick with the fragrant aroma of furmity, which Kate Rowse, the cook, had been boiling up all morning. The smell alone made Cat’s stomach rumble. Kate had added spices, butter, and rum to the wheat porridge; Cat wasn’t sure she could wait as long as the noon meal.

  “Go see who’s there, Catherine,” Margaret Harris said, without moving an inch from the larder. She turned back to the cook. “Quite how we’ve managed to run through so much flour in a month I cannot imagine.” Lady Harris, like her husband, ran a tight ship.

  Visitors to Kenegie were not infrequent, and came for all manner of reasons: beggars to request a
lms, though they were not encouraged, for the master donated generously to the parish and preferred to see the parson attend to the matter of charity; gamesmen offering a fine hare or a brace of pigeons; Market-Jew fishermen with their wares strapped in a withy basket on their backs seeking a groat for a mackerel, a penny for a pollock, or thruppence for one of the great eels that lurked beneath the offshore reefs.

  Outside the scullery, tying the halter of a bone-thin mule to one of the ornamental bay trees, was what appeared to be an old woman, but if so, she was like no other old woman Cat had ever encountered. This bizarre little person wore a brightly colored head scarf tied at the nape of her neck, vast hoops of gold in her ears, a bodice of patchworked fabrics, and a voluminous pair of breeches caught close at the ankle by silk scarves and ropes of tinkling silver bells. But it was not even the impropriety of the breeches that gave Cat such cause for amazement, it was the color of her skin, which was a most remarkable brown, as dark as a conker. A couple of years back, some vagrants claiming to be Ægyptians had turned up in Penzance with a traveling show, but they had blacked their skin with a liquor of oak galls—as had become evident when the constable consigned them to the stocks and upturned the water butt over them. Two days later, they’d been lashed out of town, never to be seen again, which Cat had thought was a great shame: True gypsies or no, they would have provided some exotic entertainment, a glimpse of another, more glamorous world.

  She opened the door a crack. “What do you want here?” she whispered. “You’d best be off quietly, for the folk here don’t look well upon your kind.”

  The crone regarded her with an eye as bright as a blackbird’s. “A girl with her head afire and goodness in her heart—now, there be a fine sign for a murky sabbado.”

  Cat stared at her. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  The gypsy leaned against the door frame and peered into the scullery. “Yon settle looks fair for resting a bundle of old bones that have been jounced since dawn’s light.”

  “I really can’t let you in,” Cat said nervously, “much as I’d like to. I’d get into trouble. There’s a bench in the garden, though. You could sit on that and I could perhaps bring you something to drink before you go on your way.”

  The old woman continued to gaze at her unblinking. “There be trouble coming your way whether or no you let me in.”

  Cat took a step backward. “What sort of trouble?”

  “I’ll take some repast for that, my maid,” the Ægyptian said, sniffing the air like a little pug dog and setting her foot over the threshold.

  “Ah, no, you’d best come with me,” Cat said quickly, before the situation got out of hand. She slipped out of the scullery door, leaving it on the latch, and drew the woman away across the garden, out of sight of the kitchen windows. The crone sat down on a bench beneath the apple tree and eased her feet out of her long leather shoes with a great sigh. “Treacherous as the serpent in Eden,” she complained, glaring at them and rubbing her bunions with a great claw of a hand. “I paid good silver for them at Exeter; by Plymouth I was in agonies.” She paused, then straightened up. “I’ll be needing new shoes in Penzance, I think.”

  When Cat said nothing to this, the old woman rolled her eyes. “Be a good maid and give me a bit of silver and I’ll tell your fortune.”

  Cat caught her breath. “Are you a moon woman? One as reads the path of life in a girl’s hand?”

  “The spirits have bestowed that gift upon me,” the old woman said modestly. “Though it tends to work the better for the touch of silver.”

  “I have no silver, but I could get you something to eat, if you’re hungry. There’s some bread fresh baked.”

  The old woman snorted. “Can’t wear loaves on my poor ruined old feet, can I?” she demanded, unfairly.

  Cat desperately wanted her fortune told. But she had given her last coin to her mother the day before and would not be paid till the coming Monday.

  “The bread is good,” she urged. “And there’s furmity in the pot.”

  At the mention of the furmity, the crone sat up straighter. She gave Cat a wide, lopsided grin, which showed off her strange collection of teeth. “Ah, furmity—now, that’s worth a fortune to me. But, mind, if you want good spirits to guide your future, maidie, best make sure there’s plenty of good spirits in it, eh?”

  Cat ran back to the scullery, wondering how on earth she was going to make away with a bowl of furmity without being seen.

  “Who was it?” Margaret Harris called sharply as Cat entered the kitchen.

  “A poor, hungry old woman,” Cat said, not meeting her eye.

  “Another of them vagabonds, looking to steal our victuals no doubt!” Cook clucked.

  Cat drew herself up. “She’s a poor old crone, bent almost double and riding the world’s thinnest mule. I sat her down in the shade of the orchard.”

  Margaret Harris strode over to the window and stared out at the unfortunate beast. “Lord save us, the wretched thing’s eating my lavender! Kate, go at once to the yard and tell young Will to take it away and give it some barley.” She turned back to Cat. “You can take the old woman one of yesterday’s loaves and draw her up some water from the well. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Cat reached for one of the flagons, but Lady Harris caught her hand. “Do have a thought, child: These wandering people carry all sorts of diseases with them from the cities. We want no pox or pestilence here. Surely she must have her own drinking vessel?”

  Then, as if her maid might already be infected by her contact with the vagabond creature, Lady Harris left the kitchen at speed.

  Cat caught up one of the twelve new round loaves that stood cooling on the rack where Cook and Nell had placed them earlier. Then, recklessly, she took down an old pewter bowl and dipped it swiftly into the bubbling furmity pot. The crock of rum was on the floor; hefting it, Cat poured a good dash into the bowl, and over her shoes into the bargain.

  “God’s teeth!” Now she would have to wash them at the well or go round all day stinking of liquor, which certainly wouldn’t enhance her already tarnished reputation. Clutching bread and bowl to her bosom, she ran back to the orchard.

  The gypsy’s fingers fixed on the furmity bowl like a falcon on a mouse. For a second the two women stood there, connected only by the pewter dish, and Cat felt a strange low thrumming in her bones. Then the Ægyptian broke the connection sharply. Holding the bowl close, she scooped the porridge into her mouth, barely drawing breath as she wolfed it all down.

  “Not enough rum,” she pronounced at last, wiping her mouth and handing the empty bowl back to Cat. The loaf she stowed away in some great hidden pocket of her pantaloons.

  Cat pursed her mouth. She had expected, if not gratitude, then at least some acknowledgment of her trouble. She stuck her hand out, palm up, hoping that at least the spirits would be more gentle toward her, but the crone pushed her hand away. Cat had the sudden, distinct impression that she did not want to touch her. “You said you’d read my hand!” she said sharply. “’Twas for that I brought the furmity and the bread and risked the wrath of my mistress.”

  “’Tis not the wrath of thy mistress thou needs fear, maidie,” the crone returned. She winked, horribly. “I’ll cast the stones for thee, but do not blame me if thee like not what thee hears.” And so saying she delved into the other capacious pocket of her breeches and drew out a little leather pouch that jinked as she moved it. “Touch the stones, maidie, and think of the things that most trouble thee,” she instructed, and Cat did as she was bid, thinking of Rob and her fear of captivity, of the altar cloth and her dreams of escape. The stones felt cold and smooth, like pebbles from the stream, except for a roughness on one side.

  “You must draw four stones, one at a time, and put them down there, on the ground.”

  Cat’s fingers caressed the stones, as if to pacify them, to soothe their predictions. Then she selected one and put it down. On the upmost surface three scratched lines had been inscribed i
nto it like a crooked letter C. “That’s for thy past,” the crone said. She peered at the stone like a thrush regarding a worm. “Now, there’s a mystery,” she said cryptically. “A wild mix of blood you have there, my lover, and blood will out. Take another.”

  Cat frowned. Her second stone bore a pattern like two broken links in a chain.

  “’Tis a time of change, but the results of this change will depend on your perseverance.”

  Cat’s jaw firmed. If perseverance was what it would take to get her out of here, perseverance she would have. But if they were going to marry her to Robert by the end of the summer, then perseverance would hardly serve. “For how long must I persevere?” she burst out. “I fear there are some things that may not be endured or turned back whatever I do.”

  The old woman clacked her teeth. “Patience, birdie. Take a third.” She watched as Cat put it down next to the other two. A stone bearing a zigzag line. “Ah, the lightning bolt.” She made a face. “The casting down of vanity and the wrath of God.”

  Cat frowned. Now the Ægyptian was sounding like Nell Chigwine. “Are you quite sure? Is there no other reading of the sign?”

  “Don’t question the stones, maidie. Unless you want worse.”

  “I don’t think I believe your stones!”

  “I’ll stop, then, and be on my way.”

  Cat sighed. “No, please don’t. I’ll hear the rest, if it please you.” She took a fourth stone quickly out of the bag and put it down. The symbol on it was shaped like a roughly hewn R, but all in angles.

  The gypsy burst out laughing. “There it is, there it is!” she crowed. “I knowed it, I did. Ah, but the spirits speak loud to Old Maggi atimes. There she is, as bold as day: raido the journey. Ye’ll be going a long way, birdie, a very long way from here, and at the end of your journey will be a union between Earth and Heaven, all your dreams come true.”