Turning the Stones (19 page)

Downes seemed disappointed to hear that I was not under arrest. She said, ‘Miss Broadbent ought to have accepted that she was superfluous. How could Sedge Court be expected to maintain her? And it is not as though the mistress did not try to help. Had Miss Broadbent failed to secure another post, there was no question of her being thrown to the wolves. I
know for certain that the mistress offered to install her in a home for indigent servants if it had come to that.’

I said, ‘Was Miss Broadbent asked to leave?’

Downes said, ‘That is none of our business.’

‘Eliza, do you know if Miss Broadbent’s post was terminated?’

To my astonishment, Eliza shoved me in the chest with such force that I almost fell. ‘How dare you?’ she shouted. ‘Do you say that my mother is a murderess!’

‘Of course not.’ I took a step backwards.

But she flew at me with flashing eyes and began flailing with her fists. I backed away from her, stunned by the violence of her response, and found myself turning a defensive shoulder to her.

‘It is nothing to do with us!’ she cried. ‘It was Miss Broadbent’s own stupid fault!’ She thrust out her lower jaw and her bottom lip.

‘Stand still,’ Downes snapped. She jerked the ties on Eliza’s petticoat and it sagged to the floor.

I said, ‘I only wish I knew what brought her to that moment.’

Tears welled in Eliza’s eyes. ‘Em makes everything out to be my fault.’

‘I do not mean to.’

‘How should I know if Mama asked her to leave?’ Eliza kicked her petticoat aside.

Downes said, ‘It has been a wearisome day and we must thank God that it is at an end. Say your prayers now and go to your beds.’ She shook out the petticoat brusquely, adding, ‘Let this be a lesson to you, Smith. Mind that you do not
despise your needle. A person born into the world without a fortune must needs employ her hands rather than her sensibilities.’

Eliza was already on her knees on the Turkey carpet at the foot of the bed, eyes downcast. As I joined her, Downes added in a tone of high righteousness, ‘We have no entitlement to spend time in ways that do not benefit our betters.’

I bowed my head, asking our Lord to cherish the soul of Miss Broadbent that she might rest in peace – a request that felt hopelessly insufficient to the tragedy of her death.

The door banged as Downes went out, and immediately Eliza rose and burrowed under her blankets, keeping her back turned to me. I was too exhausted to try to effect a rapprochement with her. I left her there, a wrathful lump in her four-poster, took up the chamberstick and went to my cot in the dressing room.

I shifted around uncomfortably on the mattress. It was bumpy where the woollen flocks inside it had matted. The wind was whistling in the chimney in a maddening way, like a recorder being played badly, and I could not properly sleep. I rolled on to my back to avoid pressure on the hip that Barfield had bruised. As I felt the aching aftermath of his assault, a tremor of relived panic passed through me.

I stared wide-eyed into the darkness of the dressing room. A coal tumbled from behind the fire screen on to the tiles of the hearth, spitting sparks into the gloom. The line of light smouldering at the edges of the screen seemed to hint at an infernal entertainment taking place within. Was it true that Miss Broadbent would go to hell as a punishment for taking her own life?

Why had she killed herself? Was it because she had been asked to leave this house? How terrifying must the world be if hanging were preferable to being abandoned by Sedge Court.

I prayed to God, then, to make me indispensable to the Waterlands. I asked him to keep me under the protection of Sedge Court in any way he could find, so that I would not need to resort to extreme measures. Please let me not be discarded, I beseeched. Please let something happen to forestall that event.

*

In the days following Miss Broadbent’s death I went about my tasks as usual, but I felt detached as though I were only mimicking my customary actions. I had little reaction even to Barfield’s sudden departure. During sleepless nights I ransacked through my recollections of Miss Broadbent’s behaviour, searching retrospectively for omens and for clues that might have portended her intent had I only paid attention to them. Why hadn’t I recognised the desperateness of her state of mind? She had not the habit of despondency – that is what puzzled me so. Like Democritus, who cut up dead beasts in a search for the seat of melancholy in order to cure himself, I anatomised Miss Broadbent’s recent conversations; but I was no more successful than he was at finding the mechanism of despair. When I did sleep I had bad dreams of nameless frustration: my feet sank in sucking mud so that I could not get to wherever I was bound, or my shoulders became wedged in a trapdoor that would not let me go either forward or back. On waking I would ask myself again: how was she driven to her fatal decision? I even wondered if it were something
to do with her inquisitiveness about where I had come from. She had pressed Mrs Waterland about an admission number to the foundling hospital. Could Miss Broadbent have had a child once whom she left there? Was she my mother? (This is how wild my conjecture became!) But surely that fixation was a symptom and not a cause.

My only certainty was the knowledge that Miss Broadbent would not walk on this earth tomorrow or next week or next year. Her absence was to be eternal.

*

The verdict brought against Miss Broadbent by the coroner at his inquisition was one of ‘felo de se’, a felon of herself. As a suicide she was to be buried in disgrace at the crossroads of a public highway. However, Mrs Waterland would not stand for such a thing – she considered it a reproach to Sedge Court – and she succeeded in having the original verdict expunged. It was recorded, instead, that Miss Broadbent had died while of unsound mind, and she was permitted to be laid to rest in hallowed ground. The mistress paid for the internment, but it took place without ceremony late in the evening with no one present but the parson and the sexton. I was expressly forbidden to visit the grave.

Two or three days after Miss Broadbent’s burial, I was awoken in the night by such piercing sorrow I could do nothing but sit up, hang my head and weep. I sat for a very long time, consumed by sorrow At length I began to tremble violently with cold – the temperature had dropped dramatically. As I groped for the blanket I had thrown aside, I was startled by the shriek of an owl. It sounded strangely close to hand, almost as though the bird were perched at the window.
I listened with an ear cocked and it seemed to me that the noises of the night were unusually loud. There was a pulsing sound, which I took at first for the wind in the trees, but then I was struck by the notion that it was actually the sound of breakers on the shingle at Parkgate. Of course, that was nonsense. How could I possibly hear the sea, given that the strand was more than a mile away? And yet the sound of surf chafing the sand filled my ears.

As I listened, I began to detect a disturbance in the rhythm of the waves, which lifted the hairs on the nape of my neck and sent a shiver rippling down my spine. I had the very strong sense that something was emerging from the sea.

I climbed out of my bed.

I crept into Eliza’s chamber in great trepidation and went to the window. Eliza was still asleep, oblivious to the intense cold. The driveway was a blaze of silver against the dirty purple of the lawn, and the lake glistened like a single dark eye. The only signs of movement in the grounds of the house were the shifting branches of the trees and shreds of mist stealing along the driveway. As I stared at the mist, the blood began to pool in my chest from fright. I believed that an entity was advancing on the house.

I realise now that none of this was anything but a manifestation of exhaustion and grief-stricken nerves, but at the time I was convinced that a wraith was drifting towards the portal of the house. It seeped under the crack of the front door. I divined its excitement as it arrived in the vestibule. My heart was hammering so hard I thought it would crack open my ribs as the ghostly presence wafted up the stairs.

Then it floated into the bedchamber and all at once my
fright evaporated. My straining senses relaxed. There was nothing to be seen, no revenant, no shade, but certainly there was a presence. I remember the atmosphere became a little colder as though a window had been opened and I discerned a person-shape, an outline filled with tepid air that seemed alive. I suppose it was a projection of sorrow that entered the house – and yet, it gave me a feeling of warmth in the end.

I returned to my bed with the distinct sensation of being ushered there and fell asleep. I awoke the following morning in a wash of well-being as though – I don’t know how else to express this – as though I had been not only loved, but
succoured
.

*

I dwelled at length on this incident but I could not wring a satisfactory meaning from it. It is absurd to say I was visited by a ghost, but that is what it felt like. And by whose shade I do not know. I do not think it was Miss Broadbent. I had wished fervently that something might happen that would fortify my position at Sedge Court. As a result of the outlandishly freezing temperature of that night, an ague became lodged in Eliza, which proved hard to budge. It brought her under the sleep of a wasting sickness for more than three weeks and made it impossible for her to attend Mrs Ramsay’s Academy in Chester. The school term began without her and I remained by her side at Sedge Court. By the time she had recovered, Lady Broome was in need of a situation for two of her distant relations, and Mrs Waterland, who ever sought to oblige Weever Hall, engaged them as tutors for Eliza.

The
Seal
, The Atlantic Ocean
April, 1766

How raw the air is here. I am looking out on a sea the colour of iron after coming up on deck as a respite from the closeness below. Captain McDonagh has given me a blanket for a mantle, but still I feel the cold. Mr Robinson has just asked me to go below again. By order of the captain, he says, and I am not to come up until I am told. I suppose it does not matter. In any case it has begun to rain. Once more.

Now I am sitting in ignorance on the berth behind the closed curtain as requested, listening to the rain dash against the hull. It makes a noise like gravel hitting a wall. The movement of the cutter has altered significantly – we might even be at anchor. Something is bumping bulkily against us.

Five or ten minutes pass.

Now a scraping sound comes to my ear and an occasional shout of effort. I have the sense that a sustained and difficult undertaking is in progress. Is it possible that cargo is being brought aboard out here on the high seas? Perhaps so, for they are unbattening the wide hatch in the forward part of the vessel.

Yes, it sounds from all the thumping and scraping as if freight is being loaded. I allow myself to peek through a slit in the curtain, and spy dripping barrels being manhandled into
the hold. Where have they come from? I have not heard the approach of another vessel.

I am very curious about what has taken place, but it is not until I feel the roll of the waves under us once more and am confident that the
Seal
had resumed her course that I dare to leave my berth. Jim is in the act of swigging from a bottle when he catches sight of me. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and offers me a wobbly salute. He tries to put on his habitual scowl but he can’t manage it.

‘What the dickens is that?’ I am referring to a bright bundle of stuffs on the hinged table, which have burst forth voluptuously from an oilcloth bale.

‘French favours, they are, and the master says you may furnish yourself from them.’ Jim ducks his head at a bulky sack lying on the floor. ‘And he says for pity’s sake put on shoes, madam. Your feet are not fit for use.’

I can hear the captain’s voice in that instruction. The contents of the sack are thrilling, especially in these dour surroundings. I find myself rummaging through a trove of ladies’ footwear – satin and velvet slippers and fine shoes in jewel colours with a heady smell of new leather. The bundle on the table is stuffed with bows and feather cockades, silks, laces, stockings, gloves and handkerchiefs. How impossibly exuberant these items seem. I badger Jim until he admits that the finery comes from the barrels that have been brought aboard. He says, ‘Silks and brandy and wine galore we have on board now.’

‘But where did the barrels come from? You surely did not find them by chance bobbing on the ocean.’

Jim taps his nose and says hoarsely, ‘Underneath the sea,
my lady, attached to ropes and weights in a spot that the captain has marked. We keep them barrels all snugly wrapped in oilskins and safe from prying eyes.’

‘That is ingenious, but doesn’t the liquor spoil for keeping it in the sea?’

‘It was touch and go right enough. This time we were obliged to keep them down for fourteen days. Any longer and the wine would have turned and the brandy thickened.’

*

I have cast aside my fetid garments. Out with the hoyden. In with the fine lady. While the sea crashes and the wind keens, the fur collar of a grass-green velvet mantle sweetly tickles my cheek and soothes my raddled nerves. My chafed skin can hardly believe the softness of the cambric shift I am wearing. The easing of silk stockings over my tormented feet was heaven. And this gown! It is beautiful, the colour of steamed salmon with ruffles of mint-green lace hanging from the sleeves. I am nearly moved to tears by the change of clothes. The relief of them. The ownership of them. A pity that there is no looking glass here. Perhaps Jim may find me Captain McDonagh’s shaving glass and – and –

And an alarming thought occurs to me. A mind with the least genius would have lighted on it at once. But I was stupidly mesmerised by the pile of trifles and my swanking in them distracted me, so that I missed their significance until this minute – namely, what contrabander would take on board French goods if he were on his way to France?