“I know it must be difficult being back here,” Iris said tenderly. “You loved it so much, and you gave it up for me.”
“For us.”
Eva kissed the top of her wife’s head, breathing in the flowered scent of her hair. “And let’s be fair, it was a temporary sacrifice. This will all be ours one day. Think of the grand parties! The exquisite dinners! We’ll fill the halls with music and light,” she said as she leisurely spun with her wife a couple of times in a mute waltz. “We can see about hiring new staff, maybe change some of the rooms. I wonder if the nursery is still intact?”
“The nursery?”
“Yes, dear. For our baby?”
“No, yes, of course, it’s just…”
“I know what you think about a house this size, all those people milling about, but I promise you it’s a wonderful place to grow up. Plenty of rooms to explore, to hide in. And the grounds! A lake, a small wood, the hedge maze… Our child will have the best of everything.”
“But the manor is so far from everywhere else, from other people, other children?”
“That’s what carriages are for, darling! Day or night, we can be whisked off to anywhere we fancy. And we can hire a companion, of course.”
“I suppose,” Iris said as she began riffling through the garments hanging in the wardrobe. “We’ll have to use half of the rooms to store all your clothes!”
“Don’t you want me to look pretty?” Eva laughed, cocking a hip and laying her porcelain hand upon it.
“You always look pretty to me, with or without your clothes,” Iris said, wickedly.
Eva laughed and ran her fingers along the spotlessly clean bookshelf. She tilted out a well-thumbed collection of folk tales containing “The Dancing Princess,” her favourite story as a child. The story of a princess sneaking out of her castle each night to dance with a beautiful maiden in a magical underground kingdom resonated deeply with her.
Iris found what she had been looking for—two small solstice lanterns. She set them on the sill of the other bay window, then took a striker from a pocket of her bag—a small clockwork device, decorated with loops and swirls. It could fit comfortably in the palm of Iris’s elegant hand. She turned the tiny key in the side, causing the lid to flip open. A piece of flint struck rapidly against a sliver of steel, producing a shower of sparks which ignited the wicks of the red candles she held. She thumbed the lid closed and set the candles inside the gleaming copper lanterns.
“Such an odd tradition,” Eva said.
“Oh, I know, you don’t do it here on fancy, sophisticated Blackrabbit but I’ve always loved it. I remember when I was young my mother would sing as she lit our candles. It feels like…home. Hopefully we can add a third soon.”
Eva turned her attention to the window once more. In the distance, she could just make out two dark shapes in the mist. Small and soft, they bounded quickly across the courtyard and through the hedge. The rabbits who gave the island its name were confined mostly to the vast, desolate moors further inland but some would inevitably find their way onto the grounds of the manor. Eva had loved to run around after them when she was little.
One day, when she was still quite young, her nanny had taken her out by the lake. In the shadow of a tall willow tree, she found a young rabbit and threw scraps of food to it. Delighted to see it eating, she asked her nanny to bring her back to the same spot the next day, and the next. Each time she took with her a little food from the kitchen to leave by the tree. One spring afternoon, her father was walking with her by the lake when she dropped a few crumbs by the tall tree. He asked her why and she told him she was leaving it for her rabbit friend, and how he always came to the same spot to see her. She told him how the rabbit loved to see her coming and was always grateful for the food she had brought. And sure enough, the rabbit came along and nibbled at the scraps.
Her nanny took her out to the willow tree the following day, but there was no sign of the rabbit. Nor the next. Nor the next. Feeling glum, she had asked her father to walk with her. When they reached the tree, she stopped. Her father asked her what she was doing and she told him she was looking for the rabbit. He looked at her blankly before explaining he’d asked the groundskeeper to buy more dogs to keep the rabbit population under control.
“But he was my friend,” she said.
“It was a pest,” he’d replied. “Silly little girl.”
After that day, Eva stopped leaving food by the willow tree.
Chapter Six
AS ROBIN WAITED for the bath to fill, he stood by the window of his room and watched Edwin stride across the town square. Even if he weren’t able to spot Edwin’s shaven head in a crowd, his confident gait would have singled him out straight away. Robin thought about asking Duncan if he’d like to accompany him on a walk around town later on, though he could imagine the response such an offer would receive.
Gulls landed on the clock tower in the town square, squawking boisterously. The tower was tall and five-sided, with a carved animal head on each facet. From where he stood, Robin could make out a badger, a fox, and, overlooking the clockface, a rabbit with icicles dripping from its nose. It was atop there one particularly fat bird had entrenched itself, much to the annoyance of the others.
The town was alive again and crowds jostled for position on the street, keeping out of the path of the many horses and carriages going by. Few of them stopped to talk, or even acknowledged one another. In Blashy Cove, one couldn’t walk ten yards without waving or calling out to someone, but in Port Knot people tucked their hats and bonnets low and kept to themselves. As Robin stripped off his nightshirt and eased himself into the piping hot tin bath, he wondered if the coldness, the distance, between the townsfolk was a by-product of the growth and success the town had enjoyed, and if one day Blashy Cove would go the same way. He hoped not.
EDWIN, CLAD IN a plain linen shirt, corduroy trousers, and a grey woollen overcoat, drew disapproving looks from the dapper, breech-wearing men and corset-clad women on the street. If his mode of dress didn’t identify him as a Merryapple native, his cheerful, polite disposition certainly did. He smiled at passers-by when he happened to catch their eye and stepped into doorways to allow ladies to pass.
An errant snowflake landed in his eye, and as he stopped to wipe it away, a woman bumped into him.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t see for a moment.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the woman, gazing up at him from beneath her bonnet. “Well, hullo, handsome. I know I should apologise too, but I don’t regret bumping into you in the slightest!”
“Hah, well, that’s very kind of you. Are you quite sure I haven’t injured you, ma’am?”
“Not at all, not at all!” said the woman, making a show of checking over herself, patting down her botanical patterned dress, a style so popular on the island. “Good day, sir.”
She smiled sweetly and was on her way. Edwin was a good twenty paces along before he noticed his coin-purse was missing. He spun on his heels and tried to find the woman, but she was lost in the throng of townsfolk. He felt foolish. Pickpockets were exactly the kind of thing Duncan had warned him about and so he resolved not to tell him. The ensuing mockery would be unbearable.
Clutching the letter his sister-in-law had sent him, he found her home several streets away, on Quarryman’s Lane. It had been years since they had seen one another and he suddenly wasn’t sure what he would say. He held his fist up, but before he could knock on the door, he was accosted by an unseen figure.
“Edwin!” the woman exclaimed, instantly hugging him close. She buried her head into his broad chest. He was so startled it took him a moment to gather his wits.
“Hester? I was just about to knock…”
“I walked the boys to school and I just saw you standing there, and for a second, I thought that woman had sent a man round to frighten me, then I remembered the Ladies Wolfe-Chase said you were here.”
She produced a key and unlocked the door to he
r little house, beckoning him in. He was struck at once by the aroma of the peat fire glowing softly in the hearth. The loamy scent filled his lungs, warming him from within.
“The Ladies…you spoke to Eva and Iris?” Edwin asked, confused.
She insisted he sit at the kitchen table while she boiled water in a kettle and told him about meeting the Ladies in the Frost & Thaw Tearoom. She removed her shawl and coat, hanging them by the door, which she locked emphatically. Edwin wasn’t used to seeing homes being locked, it never happened back home. He glanced around the disorganised kitchen with its peeling paint and through to the adjoining shabby little room. In the window sat three brass lanterns, set with coloured glass. He was glad she was keeping the tradition going for his nephews.
Hester was distracted, scattered almost, and tired. He would even go so far as to say haggard. She was roughly his own age, he remembered—forty, or thereabouts—though she looked older, with deep circles under her eyes. Moving to and fro, lifting things up and setting them down, having apparently forgotten why she lifted them in the first place. Twice more she returned to the door to check she had locked it.
“The boys are well?” Edwin asked.
“I think Rowan is too young to understand what’s going on, but Hob gets upset whenever he sees Sylvia.”
“They’re what, eight and nine now? Children understand more than you think.”
Edwin wasn’t sure why he said it, it certainly didn’t help anything. Hester soon sat down, and as Edwin poured the tea, she tried to explain what had been happening.
“It began a few months ago. I thought I saw your mother in the crowd by the harbour one morning but it was so busy, I couldn’t be sure. Over the next few days, I felt like I was being followed around town, like there was always someone watching me. I’m not certain if she really was following me, I suppose she must have been. She was waiting for me when I came out of a butcher shop one afternoon. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. She just started screaming at me—the most vile, horrendous things. I ran away from her as fast as I could, I almost ran under a carriage.”
She began shaking as she spoke. Her floral–patterned teacup rattled in its saucer.
“I’d see her every couple of days afterwards, shouting from across the road. Then she started coming here, banging on the door and windows at all hours of the day and night, demanding to see the boys. I think she had a kitchen knife on her a couple of times. I’m at my wits end, Edwin. I think she’s going to take the boys. She’s dangerous, I know she is. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t hurt you, or the boys,” Edwin said, even though defending his mother wasn’t what he was there to do.
Hester looked as though she were about to speak but instead she began weeping and she didn’t stop for a long time. Edwin moved beside her, putting his arm across her shoulders and holding her gently.
“I’m sorry to get you involved, to make you come all this way, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“No, it’s fine, that’s fine, I should have come to visit you sooner. I’ve just been… Time goes by so quickly. And ever faster as we get older. I’ll take care of it.”
“Did the hurricane hit you?”
Edwin nodded.
“It was so frightening, I thought the world was ending. The whole house shook and rattled so much, I was sure it was going to be blown away. You know what the worst part was, though? It was afterwards. No one came to check on us. None of our neighbours, my friends, no one. It made me miss Blashy Cove. The people, the community. Was it bad there, the storm?”
“It was, though we had less damage than here. We lost the Painted Mermaid. Generations worth of art and artefacts lost forever.”
Decorated to resemble the bottom of the sea and strewn with seashells and fishing nets, the Painted Mermaid Museum had been quite the sight.
“Oh, no. I always liked that place. The owners were good friends of my parents, helped them settle in when they first moved to Merryapple from Africa. Were they injured?”
“No, luckily everyone took shelter in the Moth & Moon. Thanks to Robin’s warning.”
Hester looked confused. “Robin Shipp? The odd, portly man in the thin house on Anchor Rise?”
Edwin cleared his throat. “Ah, yes, that’s the one. But he’s not odd. He’s really very sweet. The hurricane changed a lot of things in Blashy Cove. For one thing, it made me realise how I felt about him. We’re together now, actually.”
“Oh, well, I’m glad you’ve found someone,” Hester said.
“Do you know where Mum is? I thought she was living with her sister in Heron-on-the-Weir?” he asked.
Hester shook her head. “I think she’s working as a chambermaid here in town, I’ve seen her in a scruffy apron. I don’t know how she managed to find work in her state. They must not be fussy employers.”
“Do you know where? It might be a good place to start looking for her.”
“I’ve seen her standing outside a big inn near the clock tower. Oh, I can’t remember the name. Something about an animal. A tiger, or a lion, maybe?”
Edwin almost snapped the key in the lock of Hester’s front door when he flew out of her house and down the narrow street.
ROBIN STOOD IN the tin bath and dried himself off as the water gurgled noisily down through the pipes. Suddenly the bathroom door burst open and a shabbily-dressed and stooped chambermaid entered, muttering under her breath as she picked clothes from the floor. Flustered, Robin scrambled to cover himself with a towel simply not up to the task of encasing the generous circumference of his waist, so he settled for holding it over the most salient area.
“Excuse me, I’m in ’ere!” he blurted.
The wiry red head of the maid had remained pointed at the ground and hadn’t acknowledged him at all until he spoke, then she snapped upright, fixing her piercing green eyes upon him.
“Shipp!” she cried, in a voice cracked and hissing.
“Missus Farriner?!” Robin spluttered.
Another voice was calling from the room. Edwin had arrived, evidently out of breath from running back to the inn and up five flights of stairs.
“Robin?”
“In ’ere. An’ I’m not alone!” Robin called.
Edwin grabbed his mother by the shoulders and closed the bathroom door behind him, leaving Robin to dry and dress in peace.
“MUM, WHAT ARE you doing?” Edwin asked.
“Edwin? My Edwin?” Sylvia said, laying a frail hand upon her son’s cheek. She was confused, barely present.
“Mum—” he began, but Sylvia bolted from the room before he could finish. Still out of breath, he darted after her as quickly as he could but lost sight of her as she disappeared into the crowded street outside. He stood in the doorway of the inn and was soon joined by Robin, dressed in his usual linen trousers and knitted woollen jumper. He put his hand on Edwin’s shoulder and spoke in gentle tones.
“So, she’s ’ere, then.”
“I hoped she had it wrong or was exaggerating, but you should have seen Hester, Robin. She’s a nervous wreck.”
“What do you want to do next?”
“I need to find out where Mum lives. I need to go after her.”
“We,” Robin corrected. “Let’s ask Mrs. Firebrace.”
As if on cue, the innkeeper appeared from the room behind them, her little dog trotting along behind her, nails clacking on the floorboards. They made enquiries as to the home address of Mrs. Sylvia Farriner.
“I’m sorry if you’d had any bother but revealing the exact location of one’s worker’s home is not the sort of information one gives out,” Mrs. Firebrace sniffed, “regardless of whether or not one knows one’s brother or…not.”
She had clearly tried to sound elegant, perhaps fearful the presence of these simple Blashy Cove folk would draw forth the provincial accent she managed to bury, but her sentence had entirely lost its way.
“Please, you don’t understand,” Edwin sai
d. “She’s my mother.”
Mrs. Firebrace dropped one hip and crossed her arms. Her pug sat and tilted his head.
“It’s true, she is,” Robin interjected. “Same eyes, see?” he pointed at Edwin’s face in the way one does, as if the person being spoken to might not be sure whereabouts on a face the eyes were to be found.
“Same colour ’air too. Or, it would be, if ’e ’ad any. Up there.”
“That’s plenty, Robin,” Edwin said, raising his hand a little to stop the description before it got too detailed.
Mrs. Firebrace considered it for a moment.
“Oh, fine. She’s living with the Stormlost over in Gull’s Reach.”
“The what?” Robin asked.
“The people who lost their homes in the hurricane have all banded together. The Stormlost, they call themselves. Bit of a grandiose title, if you ask me. They’ve made a little settlement over in the west side of town, across the bridge. Mrs. Farriner said she was staying there, but more, I can’t say.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Firebrace,” Edwin said as he scrambled for the door.
“And you can tell her from me she’s not to come back! Rushing out like that. There’s plenty of other folk who’ll stay and do a full day’s work!”
The dog, excited by all the rushing and shouting, yapped and scuttled about the room.
“’Ang on, Edwin,” Robin called when they were outside. “I know Gull’s Reach by reputation; it’s not a place we should go wanderin’ about in, askin’ questions.”
“We won’t be bothering anyone; we’ll just go see if anybody knows where Mum is.”
“Oh yes, an’ I’m sure folk round there be only too ’appy to ’elp. Look, why don’t we at least ask Duncan to come with us? ’E’ll steer us right.”
“He doesn’t want to go out into the town.”
The Lion Lies Waiting Page 5
