The day passes in a rush of morning lessons: geography, mathematics, reading and comprehension, writing. Four subjects seemed enough, and it will take me a while to establish the limits of their learning to date, then after lunch we exercise in the gardens. They are, on this short acquaintance, pleasant children, polite and curious.
They will be, I believe, fine sources of information, but I do not ask them many questions, not today. Not so soon. It wouldn’t do for one of them to report back how inquisitive Miss Todd is. In the evening, I dine with the family and make polite conversation with Jessamine, answer Luther’s periodic questions – he is mostly disinterested in me, always contemptuous – and keep an eye on the children’s table manners. Mrs Morwood senior is not present and I have had no summons, but refrain from asking about her lest it provoke her son.
When the meal is done, I do not have to oversee either baths or bedtimes for Jessamine makes a point of doing that herself. I nod and smile when she tells me: these are the tiny memories children will hang onto in later life, the small tendernesses some mothers bestow. The sort of recollections that will keep one going, will keep one warm, will help one be kind to other children at some point. I have few such memories, but I do have them.
In my room, Luned has set the fire as she did the night before, but I doubt she’ll draw a bath for me again. I sit in the armchair, staring into the flames, yet careful not to wish for anything. There are matters to which I must attend, promises to keep, but I’m bone-tired and it takes a while before I heave myself upright. First, I roll back the rug, take a small prybar from the satchel, then make my way around the room, tapping at the wooden floorboards with a foot until one gives the right hollow sound, the right amount of shift. It’s a simple matter to lever up the board – it’s a short one, cut to fit close to the wall – then hold a candle over the void. I realise quickly that I’m not the first person to do this. There are a few cobwebs, some dust – but not a decade’s worth, nor a century’s, less than a year perhaps. The light washes over a small rectangular object at the bottom of the hole. I reach in, extract it.
It’s a bundle of letters tied with a blue ribbon. Two letters to be precise so not quite a bundle, one thicker than the other. My first clue, then, for one of my tasks. I undo the ribbon, open the thinnest one first.
A single piece of paper, thick and white and written in a jagged, rather masculine hand I recognise. The second is the same paper, two sheets, but it’s wrapped around an image so carefully and intricately inked that I recognise the faces: Mater Hardgrace of the Academy and a young woman dressed in the plainest of attire that cannot hide how beautiful she is. I saw the large version of this very portrait in an office back in Whitebarrow, that day I made my promise to Mater Hardgrace. The letters are filled with nothing but businesslike chatter, details of weather, of decisions made at the Academy, and final wishes for the young woman to succeed, to remain steadfast and do her aunt proud. A fondness in the tone, yes, and no sense that these words would be the last between them. I take one searching look at that glorious face, then put the letters back where their owner secreted them.
The hollow is big enough for my secrets and theirs; but I shall pursue mine first.
I unlock the trunk, take the jar from the carpet bag, unwrap it and check the wax seal. Still intact. My sigh is equal parts despair and relief as I hold the bottle up to the light and peer at it. The contents seem to move, but that might just be the effect of the fluid it floats in. Once again I swaddle the container in the old shirt, then gently set it in the hidey-hole. I fish another three objects from the bag – my death’s assured if they’re discovered – and add them. The floorboard slots back in place, and the rug flops over the top. No one will notice, I’m sure.
Tonight, I feel I can sleep soundly without fear of any unexpected visitors finding anything untoward in my possession. Tomorrow evening, I will unpack properly, transfer my things to the armoire and duchess; I’ll ask Burdon to have Eli store the trunk wherever it is such things are stored. Then I shall be settled, for however long is required.
Now, though, I find the silver flask in my satchel. I’ve not touched it in weeks and weeks, kept it, hoarded it like a miser. I check my reflection in the mirror – tidy, unremarkable – then make my way down to the kitchen.
It’s a cavernous space, vaulted ceiling so high it’s lost in shadows – unusual – with doorless rooms running off it, and stone stairs going down presumably to the cellar. A wide hearth with a fire blazing, sideboards filled with crockery, a large battered table with an assortment of chairs on one side, a bench on the other; a deep double stone sink, copper pots hanging from a ladder suspended from the roof. Flagged floors, warm with radiant heat from the fire.
Mrs Charlton’s hair is still quite black but for silver streaks running from each temple and twisted into her loose chignon. She’s spare, no fat on her, and large-boned. Her big hands look as if they could easily wring the neck of a chicken but hold instead a delicate piece of embroidery in a hoop frame. She’s sitting at the table, its surface scarred from the efforts of cleavers and knives, stained from the tints of food prepared there. Three lanterns are lit for her to see by. A steaming tin mug of tea is within reach. She says without looking up, ‘Good evening, Miss Todd.’
‘Good evening, Mrs Charlton.’ I’ve not seen her before this, though I’ve eaten meals prepared by her, noticed the signs of a well- run household. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
I don’t say at last or anything foolish like that.
‘What can I do for you, miss?’ Still she doesn’t look up, just keeps piercing the cambric with her needle, drawing bright crimson thread through to create roses.
‘What beautiful work, Mrs Charlton.’
‘Can you embroider, Miss Todd?’
‘I can barely darn a sock, indeed I’m so clumsy I’d likely pass out from blood loss,’ I say, and she snorts. ‘May I join you?’
She waves a hand: go ahead. ‘Would you like a tea? The pot’s fresh.’
I sit across from her, hold up the flask, shake it gently. ‘I thought perhaps you might like something a little stronger?’
She raises a brow, as if choosing whether to disapprove of me.
‘It’s a raspberry gin,’ I say, smiling. ‘I’ve been saving it until a good day.’
‘And that was today?’
‘The best one I’ve had in a while.’ Not a lie.
She puts her embroidery aside and rises. When she’s collected two fine-blown glasses from a sideboard, and a small plate of biscuits from a barrel, she returns. I’m generous with my pour, though it’s the last of this particular vintage I’m likely to lay hands on. Clinking our glasses, we toast, ‘To your health.’ The crystal rings sweetly. We sip and sigh.
‘Oh my, that’s nice.’ Mrs Charlton leans back in her chair.
‘A gift from an old friend,’ I say. Neither entirely true nor false.
‘Lovely.’
A few moments of silence, companionable. I’ll not ask too many questions. But here, this is gossip between women of the same house, a pleasure and a necessity. What better place than a kitchen? How to start though?
She saves me the trouble. ‘So, Miss Todd, this is a long way to come from anywhere.’
‘The Tarn is a decent size, I think. We seek employment where we may, Mrs Charlton.’
‘True, true.’
‘There were other positions in towns, bustling places,’ I say, ‘but this one’s remoteness appealed. I’ve lived in the city, in Whitebarrow, for a long while. Morwood is a nice change.’
‘Ah, well. You’ll find what you need in the Tarn; it’s a self-sufficient spot. You’re just far from most things and sometimes that chafes.’
‘You’re not from hereabouts, Mrs Charlton?’ I pour another measure of the gin for her, keep the last dregs for myself. The biscuits are cheese, sharp and crumbly, delicious.
She shakes her head. ‘Been here ten going on eleven years. I came with Miss Jessamine when she married.’
‘Ah.’
‘I was her nurse when she was little – motherless mite she was.’
‘And you couldn’t bear to leave her?’
‘There was nothing else for me to do in the house in Bellsholm − she’s an only child, you see − so I begged her father to send me with her. Called me a lady’s maid until the old housekeeper here died, and I just sort of fell into that.’
‘So you’re from Bellsholm then?’ I know it: a decent-sized port-city on the banks of the Bell River, a lot of merchant vessels and land caravans, an intersection where goods are traded and sent off in various directions. There’s a small theatre with a marvellous singing automaton that performs every Friday night; I have heard her. People make weekend plans to go and listen, stay for a few days afterwards. It’s become something of a spa town too, with pretty inns springing up to accommodate the tourists from near and far – with the usual warnings about not wandering too close to the bend in the river where the rusalky swim and try to lure the unwary into the waters with their arias.
‘No, no. Born in a tiny place called Tintern and married there for the briefest of times. He died during a plague, along with our newborn daughter; I survived. Made my way to Bellsholm and found work there − Miss Jessamine was a year old. It was like she was meant to be mine.’ She smiles fondly.
‘I believe I’ve heard of Tintern…’ I frown, trying to dredge the memory.
‘Ah, it’s tiny, not much of it left now. There was a dollmakers’ academy there in the old days.’
‘Didn’t they used to make toys with tiny pieces of anima inside?’ I ask.
‘They did! Sliced from their very own souls!’
It was just a semblance of life, but enough to make the things look real. Enough to make the Church disband the dollmakers’ guilds, and hunt down any artisans who persisted in their craft, burning them as witches. ‘Did you ever see it? The academy?’
‘It was destroyed long before I was born. My grandmother used to tell tales about the day it burned, about the men in their purple robes carrying torches and making sure everything was fed to the flames. That included the last dollmaker and all of her apprentices.’
Thinking of my mother’s warning about how those who are different are burned or drowned, I simply say, ‘A lost art.’
She lowers her voice. ‘Miss Jessamine had one of those moppets – it was ancient, passed down from an ever-so-many great grandmother.’
‘What happened to it?’ I ask. Folk were instructed to surrender them; god-hounds presided over pyres of dolls with tiny souls inside. I’ve often wondered if their makers felt that burning, wherever they were. If they yet lived.
Mrs Charlton pauses so long I think she will not answer. But then: ‘My miss threw it in the hearth. She became… afraid of it.’
So much fire.
‘Oh. Well, children can be fanciful,’ I say as if I don’t know better. As if I don’t know that much of the strangeness children see is real, that it peeks from the darkness because it knows adults don’t listen to young ones. I don’t tell her I’ve seen one of those dolls in a private collection in Whitebarrow, that it belonged to a dead woman, that I never touched it because it unnerved me. The Church calls them soul poppets, but once they were simply toys for the offspring of those rich enough to commission their making. They are rare to find even in university libraries or important museums.
I swallow the last of the gin, too fast to appreciate it. ‘I think I’ll have that tea now. No, don’t get up.’ I take a second tin mug from the sideboard – not the one where the fine china’s kept – and return to the table, pour myself a drink and top up hers. I’ve just settled back into my seat when the door at the far end of the kitchen opens. The weak cast of light from the kitchen spills out to show ghostly snatches of the potager, scant rows of herb beds, the last of the summer’s vegetables going to seed. Then it’s blocked by a hulking shape and Eli Bligh stomps in.
Mrs Charlton glares at him, but all he does is grin. He gently lays a brace of rabbits on the table, polite as a votive offering. He gives me a dismissive look and I stare back bold as brass to let him know I couldn’t care less.
‘It’ll take more than that to make up for all the work on that carpet you ruined, Eli Bligh,’ grumbles the housekeeper, but I can tell from her tone she’s already halfway there. She’s fond of him it seems, and I’m not sure if that should raise my opinion of him, or lower mine of her.
‘How many more, Mrs C? Four? Six? Eight?’
‘Away with you,’ she shoos, and he goes, out into the black. I’d ask more questions, but I think I’ve learned enough for one night. I’m tired besides.
‘Asher, please. Call me Asher.’
‘Then Enora,’ she says.
I smile. ‘I don’t think I can.’ There’s just something forbidding about her and I can’t imagine calling her by her first name, not to her face. She shrugs, but seems a little pleased; taking it, I suspect, as respect. I continue: ‘Born and bred in Whitebarrow. My mother dead these two years, my father unknown to me and no other family to claim me. I made my way as best I could, did whatever work would pay enough to keep body and soul together, then found employment at Mater Hardgrace’s Academy, in exchange for classes. I learned everything I could and she was kind to me, the principal. Asked if I would stay and become an instructor – but I didn’t fancy teaching grownups. I’m better with children to be honest.’ Not much of that is true; it merely sounds genuine.
‘You poor girl, all alone in the world,’ she says sadly.
I smile. ‘There are many of us; we make our way well enough. We have our dreams and our drives. We will get what we desire, never fear.’
She stares at me for a long moment, then nods. ‘I believe you will.’
‘Goodnight, Mrs Charlton.’ I rise.
‘Goodnight, Asher Todd.’