I’m distracted all the next day as I run through my duties by rote, my mind picking at angles of the problem that are, ultimately, all the same. Even when I sit watching Albertine tell a bedtime tale this evening, I’m barely in the room. If my mother is to be believed, Luther did not kill Hilarie Beckwith.
And why would Heloise lie at this point. At least about this? To tell me her brother had done this thing would simply be to confirm that my uncle got no more than he deserved at my hand. That not only was he an abuser of women and a bully, he was also a murderer. Mother has no reason to make me feel more kindly towards him – to make me think I was wrong about him in this one thing. But he did not do this one thing.
Therefore, someone else did.
I wonder for the first time whether she simply chose to disappear. Did she opt to leave her life behind and vanish so no one would find her? Yet she had no reason. She was fond of her aunt as far as I can tell, and her aunt returned that fondness – Mater Hardgrace’s distress when she came to me was genuine. She begged me to help. The letters I found beneath the bedroom floor were gentle and fond, honest and open. No undercurrents of resentment that I could detect. A perfectly normal family relationship – I’ve witnessed if never experienced one. I’m thinking this way purely because I’m so strongly yearning to flee.
Sitting at my feet on the rug by the fire, Albertine’s animated as she talks about the girl whose seven brothers were transformed into swans. The witch who’d done the deed told the girl she must remain silent for seven years, making shirts out of nettles for her siblings. But the boys hadn’t been kind, not once. So she left them in feathered form, spoke aloud so they’d never turn back, married the king, and ruled the kingdom wisely, with those seven swans forever in the palace ponds, their wings clipped.
‘Albertine.’ We’ve started sharing this duty in recent days. ‘Who taught you to tell stories this way?’
I’d noted it before, but not thought to pursue it. The hand gestures, the facial expressions, the vocal changes and tones, all designed to draw a listener in. Mother instructed me – just as her mother had her – when the mood took, and back and back and back through all the tellers from first to last. It might have been Leonora, but she’s not spent much time with them in the last few years, hidden in her rooms, losing her sight, and her interest in Albertine is only a recent thing.
Albertine looks uncomfortable. I smile. ‘Was it Miss Beckwith?’ Her eyes widen, she looks at her brother, who reddens. ‘It’s not Connell’s fault, I already knew of her – but she’s our secret, yes?’
She nods, relieved. ‘She was here only a short while, but she taught me the telling. I did like her for that.’
‘When she left, did she say where she was going?’
Albertine shakes her head. ‘We didn’t know she was leaving. Luned said she was gone.’
‘No,’ says Connell, ‘Father did.’
Albertine swallows. ‘Luned told me the night before Father did.’
Huh.
‘Sarai?’ She deigns to look up from where she’s been drowsing, curled in a wingback chair that seems set to swallow her. ‘Sarai, who taught you about plants and their names?’
‘Luned. Her grandmother taught her and she taught me,’ she mumbles. I suspect it’s only her sleepiness that makes her honest.
Ah, didn’t Luned tell me her nan had been a cunning woman when she came for help that evening? I think of the chain of red flowers I took from Sarai in the churchyard that afternoon, and how I’d experimented with it, crushing a few petals to mix with cheese in the mousetraps. Finding the mice stiff and cold in the morning. I might ask other questions, but I don’t think I need to.
‘Thank you, children. Albertine, please finish your tale, my dear, then we all must sleep.’
* * *
It’s cold in the woods, the wind picking its way right through my thick coat and gloves. At the Lewises’ cottage, Eirlys gave me directions and I’ve become more confident about navigating the estate, but I wonder how long I’ve got this afternoon before the sun begins to set, unwilling as it is to remain long during these winter days. Eventually I hear the sound of axes biting into trees, ringing with that peculiarly sharp echo that travels best through icy air.
Thomas Lewis is working further afield today. He’s stripped to the waist, sweating despite the season, but the two young men with him – other tenants’ sons, Tib’s I think – still have their sweaters on. Thomas sees me and grins, waves. I hear him tell the lads to take a break and the relief on their faces is clear; even with a couple of decades on them, he still sets a blistering work pace. Any trace of his earlier illness is gone.
‘Asher,’ he says, crossing the clearing, hand out for me to take.
‘Thomas. Are you well?’
‘Fit as a fiddle.’ Arms spread wide, muscles flexed. ‘What can I do for you today? Can’t imagine you’ve come out here for the good of your health.’
I smile. ‘I have some questions.’
‘Come and have a sit. I could do with a rest myself but don’t tell that pair.’ He jerks his head in the direction of his assistants. ‘If they ask, I’ll say you were feeling faint.’
We settle on a felled trunk, protected from the wind by a brace of trees. In the sun it would be quite pleasant, but the sky’s grey, threatening the snow that will soon blanket Morwood and the Tarn. I pick at the fingers of my gloves, but don’t remove them. All the way over I tried to work out how to say what I want to say; the perfect words are still not there, so I must use the imperfect ones. ‘Thomas, I must ask something in confidence and rest assured I will never share what you tell me.’
‘That sounds serious.’ He laughs, but there’s a nervousness to it. It makes me suspect this ordinary man has only one secret, and now I shall demand it of him. ‘I might not answer.’
‘You will,’ I say, and I touch his arm with my gloved hand. ‘You’ll answer because I saved you and your family when someone wished you ill. And I think they tried to hurt you for what you knew.’
‘I know nothing, Asher Todd, what secrets would a coppice-worker have?’
‘Thomas.’ I stare at him, keeping my hand in place.
Eventually he shakes his head, looks away from me, over to the lads, then back at me. ‘Go on then. Get it over with.’
‘There was a young woman who came to Morwood before me. A governess, and she wasn’t here long. Her name was Hilarie Beckwith. She did not leave of her own volition. Where is she, Thomas?’
He stares at his large hands, at the callouses and lines, the valleys and troughs of his life. He stares for so long I think he might not answer, but I am good at waiting. ‘Didn’t know her name. Mr Morwood brought her to me very early one morning, sun hadn’t even risen. Had her wrapped in a blanket and draped over a horse.’ He clears his throat, licks his lips. ‘Said there’d been an accident and I couldn’t tell anyone. If I did I’d be out of my living and me and my family turned off the estate to starve.’
‘Ah.’ I think about how belonging to a place like this is life and death to some. Community, family, safety and support. How the threat of losing it would be enough to make a man lie, hide a crime, hush his conscience. After all, he didn’t know Hilarie Beckwith; she wasn’t of the Tarn. Luther could hold a sword above his head, and Thomas had worked with the master of Morwood long enough to know he’d make good on his threats.
‘And I thought “She’s already dead, there’s naught to be done.” And so I took her.’ He rubs his face. ‘But sometimes I think I hear a girl’s voice singing in some parts, always somewhere close by, but I can never see her.’
‘How had she been killed?’
He shrugs but says, ‘There were marks on her throat.’
‘Did you tell your wife? Or Heledd?’
He shakes his head. ‘Bad enough I’ve got to carry it.’
‘Where is she, Thomas?’ I switch my grip, take his fingers in mine. Part of me wants to snap them – for his weakness, his cowardice – but I’m not really in a position to judge anyone, am I? Instead I’m gentle, transmitting the warmth of my gloved hand to his rapidly cooling digits.
‘The quarry.’ His head bows. Tears make marks on the doeskin of his breeches. ‘I chained her to a block and sank her.’
‘Did Mr Morwood say what had happened to her? This “accident”?’
‘No. Just that it was one.’
I rise. He remains seated, looks smaller, but relieved.
‘Thank you, Thomas, for telling me.’
‘I’m sorry, Asher.’
I pat his shoulder, but I don’t tell him it’s alright.
* * *
I think of that day when Eli took us home via the quarry, of seeing a flash of white across the gaping mouth of the pit, over amongst the trees. I think of the early morning I went there on my own to find the kaolinite clay needed for filters to clean the well at the Lewises’ cottage. I think of the mist that gathered so quickly even as it should have been burning up in the sunlight. How I lost my bearings, of the thing with an indistinct face that dived at me, made me fall. How I ran back to Morwood and have refused to think of it ever since because I had enough haunts of my own. I wonder that I’ve never heard her singing like Thomas Lewis has, but then she’s not my ghost, is she? I think of the tugging on my coat as the fog swirled around me like a snowstorm.
I wonder if she knew why I’d come? That her aunt had sent someone to look for her. I wonder if she knew how long I took to do anything? As I approach the path that leads down to the water of the quarry, I wonder if she’s angry.
I have three bundles of lavender and sage in my pocket. I thought perhaps I’d need to plant it somewhere, to grow in spring, but I’d never thought what to do if she’d been put in water. I step onto the firm damp loam. There’s no trace of any mist today, not when I’m near the path, but as I get closer to where the brown liquid laps the shore, white fog steams up from the ground. Soon I’m surrounded but I keep going, counting my steps until I know I’m close to the place where dirt becomes fluid. The mist swirls, parts, shows me I’m right. I wait a while longer, think I feel someone watching me from somewhere in the whiteness. Wait until I feel that tug on my coat again.
‘Hilarie Beckwith,’ I say and the tugging stops, but the weight of a hand remains there – interesting that she has some force still. ‘Your aunt, Phoebe Hardgrace, sent me to find you.’ A small pull once more. ‘I cannot see you brought from the depths, but I will make sure your aunt knows where you lie.’ Another tug. ‘I’m sorry this happened to you.’
I turn around, thinking to get a glimpse of her, to ask her one question to confirm my suspicions, and there she is. So very close to me, and I can’t believe I’ve only just smelled the decay of her, dripping wet, shreds of a nightgown clinging to her, all that beauty gone. Lips chewed away, exposing teeth, eyes picked out by fishes in tiny mouthfuls, empty sockets green with algae. Those teeth part and she screams so loudly my ears ache. I can hardly believe it won’t bring everyone running from across the estate – but I know it won’t. I’m alone with this thing, this heavy ghost, so different from my mother, a creature whose rage is giving her heft. The stinking breath pushes at me, I stumble backwards, hearing as much as feeling my heels go into the water, tipping and tilting because the gentle slope of the bank sharply drops off somewhere close by. I fear if I go in, I’ll never come out. That Hilarie Beckwith will drag me a’down for company.
I throw myself forward, stumble, yet don’t fall. Stagger into the apparition, the ghostly governess, and feel as if I’ve walked through a spider’s web, through slime, through something truly unpleasant. She’s not solid; she gives a gurgle. She might have no ill-will towards me, but I’m not prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. I dig the bundles from my pocket and turn, hurling them into the mist. I hear three splashes, whisper Depart, and the mist clears almost immediately as if it had never been.
Hilarie Beckwith is gone too.