Persephone shifted onto her side in mimicry of the doll’s foetal pose, because she was sleepy. Her attention was caught by four hooved feet dragging at the carpet by the bed. She heard the unmistakeable rumble of a horse whickering. Slowly, so as not to startle him, she edged back out from under the mattress.
The man from the painting was on the horse. His hair was long, smooth, dark and parted at the side. His skin was weathered. He was shirted and waistcoated, the tops of his sleeves were puffed, and he wore black trousers that tapered to his ankles. Like the horse, his feet were hooved.
He looked at Persephone with disdain.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
He was the Thief. She was certain of that; and yet she sensed this was a title the eyot residents used among themselves, and that he might not like being accused of stealing, whatever the truth of things. Dimly remembering some adult talk, she said: “You’re Hedwig’s Daddy.”
Her conviction that this was the right response grew. Didn’t it make sense for him to be here, in Hedwig’s home, if he was her father?
He narrowed blue eyes at her. She felt an itch on the back of her hand, and when it didn’t subside from scratching, she glanced at it. Ordinarily she bore a birthmark on that spot – an oval the colour of milky coffee – but the mark was shifting over her skin. It reached the end of her fingers and vanished, before reappearing on the Thief’s hand that held the bridle. In the same way, she felt the creeping loss of a scar on her knee, sustained from a tumble down the stairs when she was three. Her eyes tingled as she saw the Thief’s eyes turn hazel. He’d stolen her birthmark; her scar; the colour of her eyes. All the things by which she recognised her appearance were being taken. The Thief smirked, reminding her of the day in the playground that Arthur Cantwell crushed her prize-winning Easter Bonnet, grinding the petals into paste beneath his heel. Arthur wore the same smirk, and Mother had said later, he only did it because he likes you, but Persephone thought: he hated that he likes me, and punished me for it.
“Give me back my things,” she said now. The injustice of the thefts emboldened her.
“They’re mine.” The Thief continued to smirk. “Aren’t your eyes at home upon me?”
She was half his size and knelt on the carpet while he rode a winged horse. To insist he was in the wrong was foolish, possibly dangerous. But he had acted unfairly, so she said: “They are not at home upon you. They don’t belong on you at all.”
He raised a single eyebrow. “I might let you have them, if you offer me something better instead.”
A pain in her brain and heart and stomach prevented her response. The Thief’s gaze narrowed again. “Not much of interest inside you, is there? Some Credulity. Some Ignorance. But they’re nice and fresh. Will you spare them?”
The pain stopped. Persephone said: “No. I won’t.”
“Ah – that’s more appealing – Defiance. Give me that and you can have everything else.”
Persephone knew that if the Thief wanted her Defiance more than everything else, it must be valuable. Why had he not seized it without her say-so, as he’d taken the other things? It must be harder to steal a feeling than a birthmark, otherwise she would have lost Defiance already. Maybe feelings must be given up before they could be taken.
“I don’t want to give you any of my feelings,” Persephone said.
“As you wish,” the Thief said, turning transparent as a stained glass window. He was disappearing, and with him Persephone’s birthmark and scar and the colour of her eyes.
“Wait,” she said in panic.
The Thief flooded back into solid colour. “What?”
“You can have my Ignorance.” Persephone thought she knew what it meant to be Ignorant – it was the word the teacher used if a child forgot their manners – and of all the losses on offer, that seemed the most tolerable.
“Good,” the Thief said.
The ginger cat yowled, startling Persephone. She dropped the little peg doll and the Thief vanished, along with his horse. Persephone checked her hand, and her knee, immediately. Her birthmark and scar were back where they should be. According to her reflection in the wardrobe mirror she had eyes of their natural colour, too.
Persephone supposed she should put the doll back under the mattress, but that would necessitate touching it, and she had no desire to feel the Visionary Delirium again. Why would Mrs Mayhew want to feel that way? Surely she couldn’t have chosen that enchantment for herself, or made the doll, because nobody would want to be lightheaded and confused with the Thief trying to trick you into bargains. Unless this was one of the adult things Persephone couldn’t understand – like drinking, as her father did, until he fell down flights of stairs or was sick, or wanted to start a fight with Persephone’s grandfather, her uncle, her mother. Until he wanted to start a fight with her.
The cat picked the doll up in its mouth, and slunk beneath the bed, where it chewed the doll half-heartedly, then sank back into sleep. That, at least, would mean Persephone’s snooping went unnoticed.
She crept back downstairs. When she got as far as the lounge, she peeped through the crack in the door. The music had stopped. Mrs Mayhew was sitting on Daddy’s lap. They were still; she held the end of his tie. One of her red patent shoes had half slipped from her foot, leaving the soft pink curve of her heel exposed. Persephone turned her head to the wall, alarmed at the prospect of her father or Mrs Mayhew moving, or detecting Persephone’s observation. The scene repulsed her, because she had assumed there was a particular order to the world which was now skewed. Women should not sit on her father’s lap. She could not have explained why she had this assumption or why the breaking of it disgusted her – nor why the gap in age between Mrs Mayhew and Daddy made it worse. But it did, and she did not want the knowledge such rules could be broken.
Persephone returned to Hedwig’s room, and shouted out: “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
He appeared a few moments later. The set of his shoulders told Persephone he’d had a drink. She could always tell when he’d had even a small amount of alcohol, from his posture and the set of his teeth, though a stranger might not notice.
“I need to go home.” She spoke mechanically, without any hint of blame, because accusations would make him angry. “I feel sick.”
“All right.” He paused. “Shall I come with you?”
“You have to finish the window.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
She walked back to their house alone. He did not follow till several hours later.
9
Conrad Kendrick’s kitchen stretched the length of his house. The walls were limed and flagstones paved the floor. A heavy table, scented with carbolic, sat before the range. It was here that Hedwig spent the hours before the masquerade in quiet industry. She roasted pumpkin seeds, and diced the venison in blackberry juice. Ragged sourdough and walnut-studded Roquefort were arranged on boards with careful informality. Just as Hedwig slid poached pears, their flesh flushed with wine, onto a golden plate, the servants’ bells vibrated. One specifically: the bell that ran from their front door.
The guests weren’t due just yet. When they came, they should be congregating by the riverside behind the house, not arriving at the front. An early interruption was annoying. Hedwig, licking sugar from her fingers, left reluctantly to greet their visitor.
It was Briar Kendrick, dressed in a frock coat. For once he seemed sober. His hands were clasped, which Hedwig guessed was to hide their tremor.
“What an unexpected pleasure,” Hedwig said, because she thought hostesses should be gracious even – no, especially – under provocation. “Did you come to help with preparations, Briar?”
“No; it’s Conrad that I’m here to talk with. He’ll be too in demand later. Can he spare me twenty minutes now?”
She beckoned him inside, and left him waiting in the hallway while she checked. Conrad was stationed at the bedroom mirror, combing the hair that reached his shoulders. Sighing heavily, he
said he might permit his twin an audience – for a short while.
“I want you here too,” he said. “To remind him when his time runs out.”
So she summoned Briar up the stairs, and after his ascent he followed her into Conrad’s room. Against the toile that lined the walls, and swags of teal brocade at every window, Briar made a sombre column.
Conrad kept his back to Briar, focused on his own reflection. Holding up his wrist to Hedwig, he requested: “My opalescent cufflinks, if you please.”
“I hope that you are well?” Briar ventured.
“Perfectly.”
“The business must be doing well – be profitable, that is – if there’s cash to take on new employees?”
“You object to me appointing Larkin, do you?”
“Object? I’ve no objection. I only thought profits must be good,” Briar said. Hedwig slid the golden catch through Conrad’s cuff, and Briar spoke again. “I’ve really come about Persephone.”
“Pin my hair up, Hedwig, if you please.”
She took the brush that lay on Conrad’s dresser. Silently she wrapped a lock of hair around it.
“Seph’s not happy,” Briar said.
“Happy is as happy does, my brother. If she dwelled on her misfortunes less, then less misfortune would befall her. What do you imagine ails your daughter?”
“She’s frustrated with the work available here. Maybe, if she saw the world beyond our little Oxford, then she’d blossom.”
“Surely that is easily arranged. Dispatch her to her mother’s.”
“Send her to Berwick-upon-Tweed?” asked Briar, doubtfully.
“Why not? Did you have somewhere more exotic planned?”
“Not planned exactly. I thought she could do some work abroad for you.”
“For me?” Conrad twisted under Hedwig’s hands, to look at Briar.
“For the workshop. Naturally I’d accompany her.”
“You’re retired,” Conrad pointed out. “What interest have you in workshop business?”
“Don’t I live on Paxton’s Eyot? The workshop’s everyone’s concern. And I can see it faces competition. Better miniatures are made in Tokyo, and Moscow. They exceed our craft, you know they do, and we’ve become complacent just because we have enchantments. But Persephone and I could go there, source some new supplies, report on whether they’re making things the architects should try here.”
“No. I fail to see the need for that,” said Conrad. He returned his gaze to the mirror. Hedwig pushed the final grip into position.
“Any fool can see the need.” Briar ceased to be hesitant at Conrad’s curt refusal.
“If you must know,” Conrad said, “Persephone has been ill-motivated, not to mention surly, from the day she started serving in the shop. Be truthful, Briar – how can I reward her with expensive trips away? It wouldn’t be fair to the others, now, would it?”
“She isn’t the others. She’s your niece. And you have money you can spare.”
“If she wants to go to Russia, if she wants to go to Japan, she can save her wages. I’ve provided her with paid work. Additional largesse amounts to favouritism.”
“Poppycock. You’re nothing but a miser.”
Hedwig sensed they’d reached an impasse. “Gentlemen. I suggest the matter’s put aside before our guests arrive. I’ll show you back downstairs now, Briar.”
“Show me?” Briar stared at Hedwig in contempt. “What right have you to show me, when I was born in this house?”
“Of course. I simply meant—”
“The only reason I inherited nothing – not the house, the shop, that blasted mourning doll or any other damn thing – is that our father wished to spite me.”
“Hardly, Briar,” came the cold reply from Conrad. “Father left it all to me because you’d spend the whole estate on drink.”
Briar’s lips tightened. He walked away without another word.
“Go back to the kitchen,” Conrad said to Hedwig. “We’ve wasted time enough.”
*
When the hour approached for greeting guests, the master of the eyot and his accomplice donned disguises. A Colombina covered Hedwig’s upper face; it shone with crystals and was held in place by white satin ribbon. Conrad wore Autunno, which was painted gold and framed with leaves and berries. Arm in arm they walked through Conrad’s garden. By the time they reached the waterside the sun had dropped. They watched a rowing boat turn the river bend, beneath a jaundiced lantern speckled with gnats. Behind were several boats more.
The passengers had also come in masks. The Websters were the first, encased in cats’ heads of papier mâché. Hedwig helped them tether their boat, while Conrad stood by regally. The second skiff contained Persephone and Briar. Seph had picked a Moretta, the face without a mouth; while Briar wore the Plague Doctor, that long-faced mask with the elephantine nose. He didn’t mention that evening’s argument, but nor did he embrace his brother; and when he passed by, Hedwig caught the smell of scotch. She hoped he wouldn’t cause trouble – but there wasn’t time to dwell on that, because many guests were still to come, and all required a welcome. Third were the Packwoods, followed by the Goldsworthys, and the Reid-Collicotts.
The next arrival rowed alone. He wore the customary frock coat, and a Scaramuccia: the joker’s face, moustachioed and pallid.
“Who is this?” Conrad queried.
“Larkin,” Hedwig answered. “Isn’t it?”
The loner raised his mask.
“You saw through my disguise.”
Not true, exactly. One slight man in a frock coat looks much like another, but she knew no other man was coming unaccompanied. As soon as he’d secured his boat, Larkin joined the Websters and the Goldsworthys and the Packwoods and the Reid-Collicotts, who all were milling near the belvedere. He stayed in Hedwig’s thoughts. She had secured a private investigator, for a negligible sum, to check the civil records in Florence, as her lack of language skills had limited her own searches and she didn’t trust Daisy’s discretion. While waiting for the investigator’s findings, Hedwig could sift the newcomer’s circumstances further.
So when all the guests had moored, she sought his help. The pyramid of firewood must be checked for living creatures prior to ignition. Conrad owned a thermal camera for the purpose, which she might operate alone, but moving heavy timber would require assistance.
Hedwig held the camera level with her eyes, observing neon colours play over the small screen.
“You could have come from the Tavern with Mama,” she commented to Larkin. “Don’t you get on with her?”
He shrugged. “Your cousins had first dibs in that boat, and there wasn’t enough room for everyone. I didn’t mind.”
“You can be honest, even if my mama is your landlady. I know all her faults. Are your relations as exasperating as mine?”
“My parents were far worse than Mrs Mayhew. But now they’re dead, so no longer.”
Such dismissive phrasing! He’d insinuated before that their parenting was poor. Maybe Larkin didn’t grieve them. Or he’d benefitted from their premature departure. Deaths meant estates; if Larkin had inherited, it would explain Madoc’s allusion to family money.
“Any brothers, sisters?” Hedwig asked.
“No; just me.”
“Oh, an only child! That’s why you’re used to added scrutiny. If Mama does get too annoying, there’s a cottage standing empty down the lane. I’m sure that you could rent there, Conrad willing.”
“I barely see your mother, truly.”
“Cottage rental would be more expensive.”
“I don’t even know what the rent would be,” he said, unbothered. “But it’s never much mattered to me where I live. At the Tavern I get a clean bed and food. That’s fine for now – until my position is permanent.”
His reticence frustrated Hedwig. Sighing, she returned the camera to her pocket. “Nothing showed onscreen. I say we’re safe to light.”
“Wait.” He raised a hand �
�� he wore leather gloves – and peered into the heart of the wood stack. “I heard a creature moving, I think.”
He took a step or two up the sloping pile, and reached between the branches.
“Got you.” He withdrew a baby hedgehog, curled into a sphere of spikes. His gloves must offer some protection from the spines.
“Let’s set him free along the river,” Hedwig said. “He should be kept away from harm there.”
Larkin nodded. “I’ll do it. You better get back to the others. Looks like there’s some kind of barracking, up by the belvedere.”
She turned to see. A band of people were watching as Briar Kendrick tore away his mask. He lurched to grab his brother’s collar. Conrad twisted from his grip, and Briar lost his balance, landing awkwardly upon the ground. Among the spectators was Persephone, her posture rigid. Conrad took advantage of Briar’s prone position, by leaning close, as if to kiss him, and Hedwig guessed that he was whispering. Briar shoved his brother back.
It wasn’t too late for Hedwig to intervene. She ran towards them.
“The firewood’s ready to light,” she called out, to encourage a dispersal.
Several guests took a few, half-hearted steps, with glances over shoulders back at Briar, waiting for his next move. He’d been subdued. His ribcage rapidly rose and fell, for he was old, and drunk, and lacked the stamina he once had. He alone was maskless, missing the defence of every other man attending. Sephy scurried to him. She tugged his sleeve, as if she were a child.
Hedwig reached the crowd. She spotted Dennis Botham near the front; he wore a Bauta, or the mask with a prow where the mouth should be.
She told him: “You go light the fire.”
He nodded. Hedwig clapped for attention. “Follow Dennis, everyone; the fire’ll be a better show than this.”
The horde abandoned Briar and Persephone. She led him slowly in the opposite direction, towards the house. From there, imagined Hedwig, they’d go home on foot. No wonder; drunken men and river boats don’t mix.
“Should I follow them? To check they actually leave?” she said to Conrad.
The Thief on the Winged Horse Page 6
