Last night Louise had negotiated the dark veins of the cave, holding Harry’s hand. She knew full well that they led out to another beach on the other side of the cliff. Yet as she approached the entrance to their little underground colony, she experienced the same uncomfortable sensation as always. There was the umbra: its depth, its immensity. She could almost imagine it reaching out and dragging her in, a pit ready to swallow her whole.
Placing her buckets of water on the sand, she pulled down her cuffs and scrubbed at the salt freckling her spectacles. Pipe bowls glowed in the darkness.
She loitered on the edge of the cave, reluctant to enter into that smog. The men had seemed pleased to receive tobacco, never mind what was mixed with it, but Louise hated the stuff. The way it clung to her skin, even her hair.
‘Louise? Is that you?’
Taking a deep breath of fresh air to see her through, she stepped inside the cave.
Chao and Seth sat together on a rock, smoking and talking in whispers. Her father stood apart from them, jacket removed, his hands upon his hips. This morning’s poise and confidence had deserted him. She did not like the tight knit of his brow, or the way he ran a hand through his hair. In Bristol, he had usually worn a wig, but the sea winds made that impractical here. Now he tied his hair back with a single black ribbon. It had a natural curl, which was not helped by his habit of rumpling it when perplexed. The wayward locks made him look rather frantic, not at all like the polished physician that had attended upon Lord Redfern.
‘Papa?’
‘Oh, it is you. Good. Michael has been calling for water incessantly.’
‘The buckets are just outside.’
‘And I see you also brought the balsam and wound water for Harry’s nose.’
‘I did.’
He turned from her, began to dig through the contents of his satchel. ‘I have cupped Michael and inserted a seton. Tim will require a similar treatment. His fever ravings . . . the delirium . . . I have left him insisting that a hag sat on his chest and rode him all night. I cannot for the life of me begin to—’ He jerked his head up, like Pompey when he scented a rabbit. ‘What did you say?’
She frowned. ‘Nothing, Papa.’
‘Nothing?’ He glanced furtively towards the back of the cave. ‘Listen . . . There! Do you really not hear that?’
Louise closed her eyes and stretched her senses. There were layers of sound – the wind whooping softly, and the constant hum of the waves. Somewhere, distantly, water falling in its own slow, repetitive beat.
‘I can hear a drip,’ she offered.
Papa shook himself. ‘Very well, very well. I must have imagined it. This morning has been testing, to say the least. See to Harry, if you please.’
She was loath to leave her father so distraught, but she knew disobeying his orders would only vex him more. Collecting her supplies, she made her way to Harry’s hut.
The young man was sitting at the entrance, spine straight against the wooden wall. It was impossible to view him without a flush of gratitude. He had certainly taken a knocking for Pompey. The damage appeared even more alarming than it had last night; brown and purple mantled his face, blooming up to his eyebrows. He looked like a prizefighter.
‘Good morning, Harry. How are you?’
‘Tolerable.’ A squashed voice, struggling through cartilage. It made her wince. ‘And you, Louise?’
A good turn did not warrant the familiar use of her Christian name. ‘My name is Miss Pinecroft,’ she replied stiffly.
Rather than offending him, her pride made him smile. She noticed a missing tooth, high up towards the back. Had that shaken loose last night?
‘Haughty as you like. And here’s me, having lost my good looks for your dog’s sake.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Such as they were.’
He laughed and began to choke.
Louise went to assist him, but he held out a hand to stop her. It seemed Harry had his pride too.
She uncorked the wound water and soaked a clean handkerchief while he composed himself. There was fighting spirit in the young man. Afflicted with consumption, hit by a rockfall and still trading retorts? That did suggest they had caught him in time. Even if they lost Michael and Tim, just one cure would be enough.
‘Sit still now,’ she ordered, kneeling at his side. ‘I will wash it and dress it with a balsam. I did intend to make you a cold compress, but I forgot we have no ice house here.’
‘Such privations.’ He mimicked her accent – rather too closely for comfort.
‘Do not test me, sir.’ She brandished the wet handkerchief. It reminded her of forcing her younger siblings into line; how she had needed to cajole and threaten at the same time. ‘I can make this much more painful than it needs to be.’
Evidently he believed her, for he pushed the dark hair back from his face and tilted his chin up to the light. She had thought his eyes were green. At this moment they appeared grey, little chinks of slate. Cautiously, she began to wash around them. He did not close the lids.
His skin was rusty with dried blood and took a while to clean. He did not complain, just sat, as if for his portrait, letting her touch flow over him.
‘Your nose may set a little crooked, I’m afraid.’
‘Hardly matters, does it?’
‘Less for a man, I suppose. And it will lend you a certain notorious aspect, which I understand is very desirable.’
‘It won’t matter because I’ll be in my coffin.’
Her hands began to shake. She busied herself with the balsam to conceal it.
‘I wish you would not speak like that,’ she said sadly, ‘as if all this were for nothing. We have high hopes for you, Harry.’
He turned away.
‘Come here.’ She began to smooth the balsam over him. It had a deep herbal scent. ‘You might tell me, instead, what you will do with your freedom when you recover.’ She saw the gentle motion of her hands soothed his temper, took a little of the anger away. ‘I do not know how you ended up in Bodmin but—’
‘No.’ Less prickly now, just weary. ‘Don’t start that. What is it about you rich folk? Always after remaking someone. When I saved your dog, I just did it. No conditions, no fanfare. Done. If I live, I an’t going to be a different person. I was a fence before I went in, and I’ll be a fence if I get out.’
She was not certain she had heard right. ‘A . . . fence?’
That curled his lips. ‘So bloody innocent. You know, a fence. I take things in, melt them down, change them up. Pass it off as something new.’
‘What kinds of things?’
‘Hot things. Wipers, jewellery, silver jugs, all that.’
‘Stolen goods?’ Even she heard the note of disapproval in her voice.
He guffawed. ‘How the hell do you think I ended up in gaol?’
Louise was not used to being spoken to in this manner. It shocked, but did not upset her. It made her feel strangely alive.
She was alive. Her heart was beating, her knees were aching and a man was swearing at her. After so long staring at death, she had begun to feel that she had stepped behind the veil herself.
She placed the lid back on the balsam and made ready to gather her skirts.
Then Harry spoke again. ‘Who’s Louisa?’
‘What?’
He must have seen the way her face turned rigid, for there was a dart of panic in his eyes. ‘The doctor calls you Louise. But who is Louisa?’
‘It was my mother’s name,’ she said tightly. ‘Why do you ask?’
Harry’s mouth drooped. He looked sorry he had spoken. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘Why?’
‘He . . . says it sometimes. In his sleep. Or to himself.’
Unconsciously, Louise placed a hand on her chest. ‘She died,’ she whispered. ‘They all died.’
Harry shifted awkwardly against the wall of the hut. He made a movement, as if he was going to clap her on the shoulder, but seemed to think better of it.
‘Well, it happens. He an’t an old man. Give him time, he’ll marry again.’
Many daughters would fear such a thing. Not Louise. She would be only too glad to assure herself that Papa’s life would move on in a different direction, but she knew him better than that.
‘He will not. He . . . You do not know how it was, between them.’
Harry looked down at his hands. ‘Chough,’ he muttered.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The choughs in the cliff. Did you never see them? Red beaks. We hear them all the time, down here.’
‘I know the bird.’
‘It pairs for life,’ he told her. ‘That’s what my ma always said. Same mate, same place, every year. Always come back. Maybe your da’s like that.’
She was afraid to speak lest the tears spill. The truth was, it was easier to take blows on her own account than watch Papa suffer. She had cried far more for him than herself.
‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘You and that damned dog?’
‘I will assist my father,’ she said briskly. ‘He needs someone to serve as apothecary.’
‘But for how long? He’s not old. By the time he . . . you know, joins your ma, it’ll be too late to start a family of your own.’
‘That does not signify. The hospitals employ nurses to live in all the time. They prefer an older lady without dependants.’
Harry sighed. ‘High-bred lass like you, working in one of them rough places? Don’t sound like much of a life to—’
‘What is that?’ Before she considered what she was doing, she seized his hand, pulled it under the lamplight. There was a blotch and a kind of scribble next to it, as if someone had drawn on him in red ink. ‘That? How long has it been there?’
He inspected it. ‘Don’t know. Could it have happened when the rocks hit me?’
‘I would be surprised. It is more like a rash and that . . . that next to it is certainly not a scratch. A scratch could not twist itself so. Does it hurt?’
Pulling his hand away, he shrugged. ‘Everything hurts. I’ve got the consumption, an’t I?’
‘Do not be so difficult, Harry. I am concerned. It is a very strange mark.’
‘There’re a lot of strange things in this cave,’ he said darkly.
And at that, he got up and left her.