‘Mrs Charlton?’
‘Yes, Asher?’
I’m helping her fold the freshly dry sheets in the laundry room, while we can hear Luned next door in the kitchen, cursing as she thuds the heavy iron from the stovetop to the curtains. A punishment, I think. Mrs Charlton had been protective of Luned in front of Burdon, but I’d told her what I’d heard the maid saying to Jessamine, because while I can keep Heloise at bay for a while, someone else needs to watch Luned; I cannot lock her in a room on her own at my leisure. I sense the girl’s tasks are likely to become more onerous and unpleasant for some time.
‘There was another governess.’ She says nothing because it’s not a question, but her lips compress thin, and her gaze is dark. ‘What happened to her?’
I take up the corners of a fresh sheet. She does the same at the other end, and we begin the dance: folding it lengthwise, once, twice, then a third time; we step towards each other and she takes the corners from my fingers so I might bend and grab the edge and bring it up, an action to be repeated twice, each time bending a little less, until there is a neat rectangle of thick white linen in her arms. She places it carefully on top of the tower of those that have gone before. ‘Who told you?’
‘Luned mentioned her, but she was another from Mater Hardgrace’s Academy – I could hardly avoid knowing.’
Her lips tighten and twist more, like she might disappear into her own mouth. ‘She was unsuitable.’
‘Mrs Charlton, that covers a myriad of sins,’ I say and she looks away.
All my time scheming how to enter this place, then one day Mater Hardgrace appeared at the doorstep of the house that was not mine. She with her academy for governesses and her good reputation. We had met before when that reputation was in danger of being in tatters because some girl she’d sent off to a fine position had returned with a problem in her belly. Came to me – with said girl tagging along behind her, shame-faced, exhausted, weeping – because I’d developed my own reputation amongst the women of Whitebarrow, the ones who lived in the shadows and could not afford the fees for those clever doctor-professors of the city. Then she came again one day all on her own and told me how her niece had disappeared from a posting; imagine how my ears pricked up at the word Morwood. That placename so often hissed and screamed and sighed by my mother. There it was, suddenly within my reach.
‘Mrs Charlton, I beg of you. Better you tell me now. I will care for your girl as best I can. But if I do not know the currents in this house…’
The housekeeper sighs and leans against the bench top. It’s a small room, windowless, mostly given over to the copper for boiling laundry, and the mangle for squeezing it dry. There are baskets and small buckets with wooden pegs, there are washboards and metal tubs for the more delicate items. The room smells of lye and lavender, and a little heady in the confined space. When it rains, we string rope across the kitchen and let things dry there, but the recent sunny cold days have done what was needed.
‘She was here and then she was not.’
I clear my throat, speak low and steady: ‘Mr Morwood?’
She nods, a jerky movement as if the admission comes out jagged, hurts her. ‘She took his eye, though she seemed to have no liking for him. He’d follow her.’
‘What manner of young woman was she, Mrs Charlton?’
‘Not like you.’
‘You mean she was pretty.’ I smile, not in the least bit rueful.
‘Very pretty.’ She rubs her face with her work-reddened hands until it too is quite ruddy. ‘And then she was gone. Left without so much as a by-your-leave. Mr Morwood said she’d had a family matter to attend to.’
‘And no one would question him,’ I say. ‘What harm if Luther took his fun and got rid of the governess his mother had insisted upon hiring?’ But I knew from Mater Hardgrace that her niece was not inclined towards men. Mrs Charlton gives me a look that’s a little shock, a little warning, a little shame. ‘How long has Luned shared Mr Morwood’s bed?’ I ask and her expression shifts entirely to affront, not because she did not know but because I have spoken it aloud.
‘Some months on and off.’ Mrs Charlton licks her lips as if they’re very dry, glances away. In a low voice, she says, ‘She’s smart enough not to fall pregnant. Visits the apothecary regularly.’
‘Clever girl. Fennel and pennyroyal will do the trick mixed with the juice of a lemon. Anything that survives that can be voided by a concoction of black and white hellebore.’ The housekeeper blinks. ‘Don’t play the fool, Mrs Charlton; many’s the woman whose life would be easier with fewer children. I may not think much of the girl, but she’s not a fool in that at least.’
She shrugs. ‘Mr Luther whispers promises to her and gods help me, she believes him.’ She makes an exasperated sound. ‘I asked her, after you told me what you’d heard. He said she’d be the new lady of the house, that he’d put aside my Jessamine.’ Her chin sets. ‘But whatever else he might do, he’d never do that because if she’s gone, the money goes too.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’ I ask, picking up a pillowcase and folding it even though Luned will need to iron it flat.
‘Jessamine’s father was a suspicious man. He wanted his daughter married well but he knew there’d be fortune-hunters even amongst men of impeccable breeding. So he made sure that her fortune was paid from a trust by a solicitor in Bellsholm. If anything happens to Jessamine, the money – both compound and interest – goes straight to the children and will be administered by the solicitor. Mr Luther will get not a penny.’
Clever. So very clever. Luther knows this and he cannot get rid of his wife, but he can make her miserable. He can torment her every day. He can take however many maids and governesses to his bed and ruin their lives. He can sow his bastards around the estate and village. But he knows the line he must not cross. Leonora must know it too. I wonder at her finances – what did her wastrel husband leave her? What did she manage to hide away? Does she even now skim funds off the top of Jessamine’s fortune each month it is paid? I think of all those jewels in Leonora’s dressing room: how many are heirlooms, how many have been purchased with Jessamine’s dowry? What happens, however, if Jessamine is declared mad and unfit? How long before Luther thinks of that? How long might he leave her in the limbo of an asylum?
‘Mrs Charlton, I think it best Luned not sit with Mrs Morwood again.’
‘Do I look like an idiot to you?’
I smile. ‘No, Mrs Charlton, you do not.’
The children are with their mother now, visiting. She was delighted to see them and she looked considerably better for a night of uninterrupted sleep, no incursions by my mother.
And I have wondered over and again why my mother targeted Jessamine.
Of all the people in this house – her own mother and brother foremost amongst them – why Jessamine? Even the children would have made more sense, though I am terribly grateful Heloise did not think to touch or terrorise them. Nor Burdon, nor Mrs Charlton, nor Luned. Eli – Eli doesn’t sleep in the house; besides, would she even go near him? Would she sense his own strangeness and realise he would feel no fear at the sight of her?
But Jessamine, who has been sweet and gentle, even when she thought I would steal her children’s affections; wrong-headed, but sweet. Jessamine who lived – to Heloise’s mad mind – in this place, with her children, when the true daughter of the house and the heir had been sent forth. Heloise must surely sense that she’s been erased from her family’s history – I cannot imagine Luther or Leonora would have chosen to tell Jessamine tales of a banished daughter.
Heloise went after Jessamine because she’s the weakest in the household and because she has what was denied to my mother. It matters not at all that she lives under the worst of Luther’s cruelty. That she’s already worn down, whatever resources she might have had stretched so thin. And Heloise, with her unerring instinct, sensed that and made her choice. Jessamine will not be safe in this household as long as my mother roams in her current form.
* * *
The fox is a male, large, and sleeping in front of the fire in Eli’s cottage.
‘It won’t wake for a few hours,’ he says, tone carefully neutral; he’s fed it something. ‘But I suspect it won’t need to wake, will it?’
I don’t answer but cross the room and kneel by the slumbering animal. Its fur beneath my fingers is like thick silk, its scent musky. The ears are velvet, the tail a thick brush. The firelight makes the red of its pelt glow. I close my lids, squeeze them tightly so tears won’t come. If I let them loose now, I won’t do what I need to. I clear my throat, gather the beast in my arms, and rise. I pass Eli at the door and mutter, ‘Thank you.’
‘I dug a hole, behind the old… millhouse,’ he says just before I’m out the door. It makes my shoulders drop as if the weight of the fox has increased. Eli knew I could not do what I’m about to do in my room.
The air is cold and I wrap my cloak around the fox; no reason for it to be uncomfortable. It’s heavy and warm against me as I make my way towards the little building, sticking to the shadows so no one looking out their window might see me on the lawn and wonder what I’m about. The moonlight shows my path clearly. The door remains unlocked from when I brought the things I need down earlier, laid them out on the examination table, from which I’ve removed the padded mattress; I pull the thick curtains across so no one will notice the candles I’ve lit. A scalpel, mortar and pestle, dry ingredients and a lidded jar.
It’s almost midnight and the hour will help my cause, the time of witchcraft and dark deeds. I gently put the slumbering fox onto the tabletop and I pat it one last time. I whisper, ‘I’m sorry.’
The scalpel is sharp and bright and the fox’s chest opens with relative ease. The heart is still beating as I prise the ribs apart; I snip the meaty thing away from its moorings and pluck it out. From the animal’s slack mouth: a pale mist of breath and soul puffs pink from between the sharp little teeth. I grab up the empty jar and gently blow the delicate fog until it’s captive inside the container. I screw the lid on tightly; it won’t be there for long.
I grind the tiny, trembling heart in the mortar, turning it to a red jelly. It takes time and effort, but eventually it’s the right consistency; I add some blood. The heart, the breath, the soul – the essence of life, repurposed for an old woman’s vanity.
But I keep going.
I fold in the dry ingredients, turn the jelly into a paste, mix it thoroughly. The fog of breath and soul lies at the bottom of the jar; it’s stopped circling its prison as if becoming dormant. I unscrew the lid and pour in the paste, swiftly before the fog can escape, then the lid is back on and I shake the contents. The viscosity immediately changes, bubbles, becomes more fluid, a living thing.
I take the poor fox to the back door, find the hole Eli dug, just through the hedge. I lay it in the depression and ask its forgiveness for what I’ve done, then with my hands – for Eli did not see fit to leave a shovel and I suspect that’s on purpose, to make me work for my blood – push dirt over the poor thing whose fur is now dulled by death, weeping silent tears. Back in the surgery, I wash the scalpel and mortar and pestle, brush away the remains of the dried ingredients, then blow out the candles. I leave the building and take a deep breath, standing in the darkness, feeling it seep into me, through my skin, into my flesh, my bones, the very core of me. The fox’s death feels like a step that cannot be untaken. Somehow, it feels like the worst thing I have done, although it is not. Not really.