The House of Storms (35 page)

‘Don’t forget, Owen.’

‘No.’ He gazed back at her. ‘I won’t.’ He attempted a smile. You’ll be seeing Mam?’

‘I thought I’d look in tomorrow.’

‘Send her my love…’ He made to turn. ‘I’d better be away.’

Marion laid a hand on his wet epaulettes. ‘What you were saying, Owen—I mean, about the slaver ships. You crewed one, didn’t you?’

Owen blinked. ‘The pay was so good, sis.’ She felt him shrug. ‘So I have to do
something
now, sis. I have to find some kind of recompense.’

‘Even if it means joining the East?’

‘Even that. I know it doesn’t sound right, but it’s the best I can manage.’

‘Good luck, then.’

‘Good luck yourself …’

The sugar factories—Bolts, Kirtlings—smelled of desertion and the wet leavings of fires. Much of Bristol had declined from the sunlit pomp of a few years before, but people still needed cheap places to stay, and it was no surprise to find that Sunshine Lodge was still in business. There was even the same smell of damp carpets in the hall. Could it even be the same old woman in the same hairnet? Marion asked for room 12A, and ascended the narrow stairs. The bed had been turned the other way, and the night’s rain was seeping a fresh contribution to the ceiling’s stains. Voices sounded through the walls. She considered rearranging the bed. It would be like the ritual elements of a spell; get them exactly right and she’d become Eliza Turner again—but Ralph would still be Ralph, and they’d still probably have that same tiff. The bed admitted her in sour creaks, and the room unspan through the stages of her weariness.

Their departure from Invercombe certainly hadn’t been the joyful thing she’d imagined. Ralph had changed in those last shifterms—or become more like his true self—although she’d imagined things between them would return to what she’d naively thought of as their natural state once they got properly away. But more and more, he’d been talking about their journey to the Fortunate Isles as some excursion from which he could return after a year or so and simply pick up his guilded life. Where would that leave her, she’d often wondered? And where would that leave her baby? The time had surely arrived for her to tell him, but she’d started to wonder if she wasn’t putting it off not because she didn’t want to make him feel tied, but because she feared he’d simply walk away. Then they’d gone to that guildhall where the pillars glittered like insects. It was the sweet arrogance of youth, Marion now supposed, which had made them think they were the first to discover—what had they used to call it,
Habitual Adaptation?
Clumsy phrase. Yes, she’d understood Ralph’s disappointment as he paced this room, but then he’d started talking as if proving his theory was all that mattered. Questions had tumbled in her mind, and she’d felt, it had to be admitted, nauseous. She’d needed to be alone for a while, although she’d imagined as she stumbled down the stairs that she’d return a few minutes later. After all, they still had a ship to catch.

Then she was out in the street, and not exactly breathless or tearful or running, but in a state which lay close to all of these things. The ships had been sounding, the air stirring in excited flurries, the bright posters flapping, and hawkers were selling chapbooks about the best wagon routes to take across the alkali deserts of Western Thule. The sugar factories had still been at full production in those days, and their characteristic sweetshop-and-burning smell thickened the air. It was a smell Marion would never be able to catch again without sensing a light tap on her shoulder, and hearing a well-spoken female voice.

Excuse me. It is Marion Price, isn’t it?

She’d turned unhesitatingly. Greatgrandmistress Alice Meynell had been dressed in a long coat and skirt and tight boots, all of them black, which Marion had previously thought to be one colour, but which she now realised to be something of many sheens and textures and shades.

‘I’m so glad I found you, Marion. Yes, yes, I know you’re worried about time and about Ralph—but you really needn’t be. Perhaps if we could just find somewhere to talk for a few minutes?’

She supposed she could have turned and run, but the idea that she and Ralph might escape undetected to the Fortunate Isles was gone, and she sensed as she had before that this woman was not to be resisted.

‘You’re looking pale, Marion,’ she said as they sat down in a small cafe. ‘I mean, I understand as a mother how wearying it is to be in your condition.’

Alice Meynell had smiled at her. She seemed to know everything. Then she moved the condiments aside and placed a copy of today’s
Bristol Morning Post
before her. Marion had been dimly aware of phrases to do with
Arrests
and
Seizures
as she and Ralph passed the placards of newsvendors, but she hadn’t understood what they meant until she saw the front page.

‘I’m sorry to say that Invercombe—and my trust in that place—has been sorely misused …’

Marion had known that some sort of delivery had been due last night, although it had hardly been uppermost in her mind, but a whole ship filled with aether was a prize beyond anything she’d ever heard talk of, and it represented an enormous betrayal that the Enforcers should discover it in the process of unloading in the weathertop fog of Clarence Cove.

‘I’m afraid, Marion, that your father is amongst the men who’ve been arrested. Weatherman Ayres did not survive. The whole business is a most sorry instance of what I believe you Westerners like to call the small trade. Perhaps I’d have been able to discourage such foolhardiness if I’d have been there at Invercombe and kept a better eye on things…’

‘My father. You said—’

‘He’s been arrested, and I also hear that he’s injured, but I honestly can’t tell you how badly. Invercombe, so I gather, is no longer safe. Such waste—all those lovely gardens—and so many arrests. Not just your father, but staff at Invercombe, and shorepeople, and then all the way up through the guilds to the Merchant Venturers who apparently financed the whole project. And there, really, lies the crux.’

Despite what she’d already heard, Marion felt herself grow cold. But Alice Meynell looked more composed and beautiful than ever, and her gaze, which was always attentive, had grown almost hypnotic. No one, Marion thought, as the greatgrandmistress of the Telegraphers’ Guild explained what she thought should now happen—not her mother, nor Ralph, nor anyone—had ever looked into her eyes quite this attentively before.

Cissy Dunning was already under arrest. So was Wilkins and so was Wyatt and so were many of Invercombe’s maids. Even if the prosecutors were persuaded that they had no involvement in the use of the house for smuggling, they would have a difficult time getting further employment in their guilds. The situation was worse for the shorefolk of Clyst. After all, they had lit the bonfires and crewed the boats. Unfortunate though it was, even those not directly involved were likely to be tainted by this affair. Why, Alice understood that Marion’s brother had only just recently been inducted into the Mariners’ Guild, which was notoriously strict on such matters. Even her sister, and her plans to become—what, a seamstress?—might well become compromised …

‘What are you saying?’

‘What I’m saying, Marion, is that things are at a most unfortunate stage. Of course, I’ll use all my influence to see that matters are dealt with as compassionately as possible. Then there’s Ralph to consider. One way or another, he’s been drawn far too closely into this. I certainly don’t advocate the practice of smuggling, Marion, but my feeling is that the blame should rest unequivocally with the senior guildsmen of Bristol who funded this and many another escapade, and not with the men and women who were simply trying to make the best living they could.’

Slowly, colder than ever, still falling, Marion nodded. ‘You’re saying you’ll help?’

‘Of course I will. But I expect a little from you in return. And before you say anything else, I should perhaps remind you why you’re here in Bristol, and the deceit you were carrying out. Fraud. Impersonation. And you knew about this delivery as well, didn’t you? None of us are quite innocent in this, I’m afraid, but it’s vital that Ralph should be able to go to Highclare without further delay or interruption, and it’s important, therefore, that you accept that you should have nothing further to do with him.’

‘If I don’t?’

The blue eyes hazed. ‘I believe you’re just
saying
that, Marion. I mean—do you really imagine you could carry on your relationship? I do realise that this is a lot for you to absorb, my dear, but, if it’s any comfort to you, such daydreams of escape as you and Ralph toyed with are to be expected from young people. Of course, it couldn’t possibly happen, any more than my poor husband Tom probably ever imagined when he made that amusing bequest. Although I’m sure it was fun while it lasted.’ She smiled. ‘I’m not some monster. I do understand how a woman feels about her child. I also realize that the baby is partly of Meynell blood, and the last thing I’d want is for any harm to come to it.’

‘How did you know?’

Alice smiled. ‘Call it intuition. But in all frankness, my dear, I don’t think you could guarantee you could give this child the life it deserves. I want you to have it adopted.’

‘You’re asking me to give up the one thing I have left.’

‘What I’m asking you to do is to be
practical.
There’s a place just up the hill not so far from here. It’s called Saint Alphage’s, or Alfies colloquially. Ah—I see you’ve heard of it. I’ve already arranged funding, and I can assure you that you’ll be well treated. And once the child is born, it will be given a good home, and you’ll be free to get on with your life as you wish. So, I should add, will your brother and sister, and also, as far as I can manage, will the people of Clyst and the workers of Invercombe. The arrests and the enquiries would be kept to a minimum. Your injured father will be released on compassionate grounds. I give you my word that I will do everything which lies within my powers to ensure that the only people who suffer are the Merchant Venturers and greatgrandmasters of Bristol. And I somehow doubt that you have any great concern for
them…
’

Marion considered. That was the strangest thing: this woman had reshuffled her life like a pack of cards and had laid it out in this horrible new way, and yet she found herself meeting her coldly compassionate gaze and debating what was to be lost or gained. ‘If I refuse?’

‘Please don’t put me in that position, Marion.’

She tried to remind herself of what she knew about Ralph’s mother. She remembered the first time that she’d seen her wandering the shore, looking for a specific but quite useless variety of pearl, although she had no doubt that Alice Meynell had her reasons. The woman was nothing if not considered. Would she really refuse to help the people of Invercombe and Clyst simply for the sake of Marion not giving up her child? That, at the end of the day, and looking into those falling eyes, which were blue into endless dark beyond all the colours of blackness, was the one thing she couldn’t afford to doubt.

‘I’m glad you’re seeing things sensibly, Marion.’

Had she really said yes? Then Alice Meynell had settled the bill for whatever it was they had drunk and they were standing outside the cafe in blustery sunlight, and, for the sake of all the people she loved and knew, her whole life taken from her and twisted around and returned to her in this impossible new shape, Marion had started walking up the hill towards Saint Alphage’s, and nothing was ever the same.

She settled the bill at Sunshine Lodge early and was out in the ungreying morning, taking short cuts through the quarters of the city where the Jews primarily dwelt, and then the men of Cathay, and then the famine-fleeing Irish, and then the free bondsmen. She was glad, after these sorry hovels, to be piloting in her cabin boat back along Avon Cut, and let the craft submit to the currents which bore her out from the sea-locks and further down the Bristol Channel.

She’d never visited Portishead by boat before, and navigating the channels towards its little-used harbour was a task she used to keep other thoughts at bay. It was too late in the season for holidaymakers, and there were many Vacancies signs in front windows as she walked the rows of sand-swept terraces until she came to the particular house where her mother now lodged.

‘She’s in her room …’ Cousin Penelope, hands gloved in soap, gestured up the stairs. After testing several identical doors, Marion found Mam sitting at a window in a front bedroom.

‘Marion,
isn’t it?’ Mam was wearing a holed shawl, and working something round and round with the fingers of her right hand.

‘I’m up from Bewdley. I saw Denise and Owen up in Bristol yesterday evening. They’re both doing fine.’

‘Owen off on some ship, then, is he?’

‘I believe it’s this very morning.’

‘So he won’t be visiting me.’

‘Didn’t he look in last Fourshiftday?’

‘Denise, now
she’s
a good girl. Sends me these scarves she says she’s made. Course, I can’t wear them—what use are they to me? And her downstairs has always got her eye on my things …’

Mam’s gaze wandered towards the window beside which, from the wear of the linoleum, it seemed she spent most of her time sitting. Beyond back yards filled with neglected washing and gables of houses lay a small triangle of sea. Marion sat with Mam for a while as they both stared out. She’d have held her mother’s hands, but the worrying fingers were too busy.

Afterwards, in the dull afternoon, Marion took her mother down towards the sea.

‘I’m not in a bloody handcart yet…’ Mam batted her offered arm away.

They walked round the stone jetty where a domed emporium, its paint peeled and seemingly abandoned, promised
Serpents of the Deep.
‘Taken them all away, they have,’ Mam informed her. ‘Something to do with the war effort.’

Out in the channel, a white plume rose and fell. A
boom,
another plume. ‘Get that all the time here.’ Mam chuckled. Her fingers were turning something blue and glittery. ‘There’s a new emplacement up by the toy boating lake. Getting their range, they are.’
Boom.
The sound rolled back and forth across the channel as they sat on a bench and ate fish and chips, which Mam ate one-handed as her fingers still turned and turned that shard of glass. As Marion peeled her last grey chip away from the newspaper, she found the face of Greatgrandmistress Alice Meynell smiling up at her from the greasy society pages. Balling it up, she stuffed it into an over-brimming litter bin.