The Penny Heart (38 page)

She hunched inside the canoe as they paddled at speed up the river. Her boiling fit of anger ended, her mind crumpled, ashen and empty. Jack was dead. The notion kept slapping her awake each time she sank into a half-swoon. Everything had happened so fast she couldn’t make sense of it. Only after a long time did she summon the courage to look about herself; and for the second time, she wished she had fallen in a fit or died rather than witness what she saw. Jack’s head was spiked on the prow of the canoe, his skin like candlewax, his eyes staring open.

Groping in a fog, she reckoned her own life must be almost done with. Maybe they had to chop her own head off in some special place? Or maybe they made a greater spectacle of a woman’s execution? What if it was slow and long-drawn-out? She remembered the tooth-edged knife, the stone cudgel. Her teeth chattered, and her blood-stained hands dithered in her lap.

The big woman in the feather cloak put a heavy hand on her arm and started jabbering in a strange lingo. Struggling to stir up the sluggish embers of her mind, she knew she must read this woman’s wishes or die. She had a broad and proud face, well used to command, her chin and lips deep-scored and dyed with strange designs. Her monstrous stone jewellery clanked as she moved close to Mary, waving her fingers in the air. ‘Tapoo,’ she said slowly, as if speaking to a child. Mary made an almighty effort to stop shaking. It took no great skill to comprehend that this woman was her lifeline, her one chance.

‘Tapoo,’ she echoed hoarsely. The woman smiled and patted her arm.

After that she forced herself never to look at Jack’s dear face again, though she fancied he must be watching her with mournful devotion. Her whole being was bent upon the savage woman and how she might ingratiate herself. After all, she told herself, though she had fallen into a den of devils, she wasn’t dead – not yet.

*

‘Peg?’

She nearly jumped from her skin. Mrs Croxon was standing on the path, loaded up with her painting gear. Peg stood up too quickly and the flute fell to the ground.

‘What are you doing out here?’ her mistress asked. She groped about for the flute, pulling it inside her apron. Then she sighed, and gave a sad little smile.

‘I had to take a moment’s rest,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m afraid our talk the other day left me very low-spirited, Mrs Croxon.’ She wiped her eyes that were dry of tears.

‘Oh, I am sorry, Peg.’ Mrs Croxon came right up to her, and patted her arm. Peg struggled not to flinch; she didn’t care for such familiarity. ‘And I spoke harshly to you this morning, too.’

Peg shook her head sadly. ‘So you should, mistress. I take too strong an interest in what you do, and I know it’s not right. Comes of having so little meself. You see I never had such a good mistress as you in all my time in service. I’d do anything to please you, and that’s the truth.’

‘Peg.’ Her mistress stared at her with helpless pity. ‘Come inside now, dear. Let us be friends again.’ She reached out her hand to lead her back to the house. ‘It will do you no good, sitting out here in the cold. Have you your – what was it you were holding?’

‘Nothing,’ she mumbled.

‘I couldn’t help but notice. Is it a musical instrument of some sort? On a few occasions I’ve heard a quite haunting sound.’

God damn her ears. ‘Aye.’

‘Is it Jack’s flute?’

She nodded, affecting a sad countenance.

‘Would you like it included in your portrait? I fancy it’s like a mourning pendant or a lock of hair – an object that once belonged to a loved one.’

‘I never even thought of it.’ That was true, at least. And there was something to be said for having the flute in the picture.

‘Come along, then. Why don’t we finish the portrait now?’

‘Oh. I need to see how dinner is getting on.’

‘If you can sit for me now, bread and butter will suffice. I have ground the perfect lily green to colour your eyes. Don’t rush away, Peg. You need warmth and company. Take a rest, and the picture will be finished and ready by six o’clock when the master comes home.’

So there she was again, whirligigged up into the mistress’s studio, Jack’s flute clutched to her bosom.

‘Today I’ll just do the new section – yes, your hand just as it was – and then tint it. This gives a lovely bloom to your skin; now it just needs a wash or two of colour.’

She got out her pencil and started to sketch in the flute, peering hard at it with narrowed eyes.

‘What is it made of?’

Peg shrugged helplessly.

‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Is it ivory? Do you mind my asking where Jack got it?’

Keep your secrets hidden, she urged herself. ‘I don’t know. Never asked.’

‘Is it some sort of native handiwork?’

Peg concentrated on keeping her pose nice and still. In spite of all the friendly sorry-saying, Mrs Croxon had a new bite to her. And that blue gown from York did look well on her tall frame. ‘Could be,’ she said, through barely parted lips.

‘I have an interest in such
memento mori
, as you may have noticed. I lost my mother when I was only a girl.’ She indicated the picture of the gawk-faced woman.

When her mistress turned to it Peg yawned. It had to be all that fresh air.

‘And that was my first sweetheart; John Francis Rawdon.’ She wittered on about a local boy, who had gone and left her, all because of her father’s tyrannical manner.

‘He sailed away and left me, long since. Then when I was in York, who should seek me out but John Francis himself? He has finally come home to England.’

Peg jolted to attention. What was that? This sweetheart fellow had been in York?

‘Of course, I told him I am married now.’

‘And most happily married, too,’ Peg broke in.

‘Naturally. But if John Francis had only called a year earlier—’ Mrs Croxon looked rather wistful.

‘Surely he cannot be so handsome a gentleman as the master?’

‘No, certainly not.’ Her laughter was gentle. ‘But first love . . .’ She raised her eyebrows and shook her head, all in a very good humour.

Two men fussing over Grace Croxon? Who did her mistress think she was – the Queen of Bloody Hearts? True, her appearance was much improved, but only thanks to Peg’s directions. Peg struggled with her annoyance, striving to hold a smile.

‘Yet to lose your first love as you did, Peg.’ Her mistress’s long glance might have been kind, but to her, it felt withering. She couldn’t be quite sure of her mistress today. Was she dangling some sort of challenge before her?

‘My Jack would never have left me,’ she burst out, all at once. ‘He would have loved me till the world’s end. He swore it on a mighty oath. He would have married me, like that.’ She snapped her fingers. Then, recollecting herself, she shifted in her chair ‘Sorry, Mrs Croxon. All this talk of Jack has upset me – that is all.’

Mrs Croxon said nothing. Finally she asked in a little voice, ‘What happened to him?’

‘He was killed. My Jack is dead.’

‘How? An accident?’

‘Worse than that. He were killed by a warrior on the island we were shipwrecked on. At least it were quick, though it was – shocking terrible.’

‘And you? How did you survive?’

Peg was suddenly too weary to fashion anything new. ‘I was rescued by a native woman, of the name of Areki-Tapiru.’

‘Goodness.’

‘She saved my life.’

‘And then?’

‘I lived with them, I don’t know how long. Then, at last – well, my tribe did sometimes make exchanges with white traders.’

‘What sort of exchanges?’

‘They wanted muskets. And the white traders sometimes wanted hostages; a missionary’s daughter or suchlike. I wasn’t going to stay there all my life if I could help it. And then – I got back here.’

‘You should write all this down, Peg. It’s an extraordinary story. I don’t know how you bear it.’

‘Oh, I find the strength. I made a vow to get back home, and I’ve kept it.’

‘That’s good. And maybe, one day?’ She gave a silly little smile. What was it with the woman? Since she’d lost her maidenhead she thought of naught but tumbling.

‘Take another man? Never.’

‘You are still young.’

‘Do you think so?’ She didn’t feel young – she hadn’t felt young for years. Her best years had been wasted in grim endurance.

‘Let’s take a break before I make the final strokes. What do you think?’ Mrs Croxon propped up the portrait for her to see and stood back, looking pleased with herself.

Peg’s first glance at the portrait left her dumbfounded. ‘Begging your pardon, Mrs Croxon. I don’t know.’

‘It is how I see you, Peg. Often the way we see ourselves is different from those who observe us.’

As if she didn’t know that, she scoffed silently. That was her stock in trade.

Mrs Croxon went to fetch some fresh colours. Once she was alone, Peg studied the portrait properly. She recognised her own flat, heart-shaped face raised to the beholder, her lips just parted, her features very handsome. But her mistress had captured a peculiar expression; she looked, for all the world, a lost and tragical woman. Her lovely eyes stared into a terrible past. As for her pitiful costume, it was the garb of a loser in life’s game of fortune. It was a cruel picture, and she hated it. Mrs Croxon’s eye was as sharp as a scalpel of truth that cut away layer after layer of humbug. It said without words the question that flayed her alive: if she was so clever, why had she lost all she’d ever wanted?

Mrs Croxon reappeared with a jug and a glass jar. ‘Do you like it?’

‘You’ve got me all wrong,’ Peg said. ‘That’s never me.’

23

Delafosse Hall

November 1792

~ To Roast Bones ~

Have the bones neatly sawed into convenient sizes, and soak overnight in water until the blood ceases flowing. Place them upright in a deep dish, and bake for 2 hours. Clear the marrow from the bones after they are cooked with a marrow spoon; spread it over a slice of toast, and add a seasoning of pepper.

As told by Nan Homefray, her best way

I asked Peg to sit down again. I was stung by her attitude, and exceedingly eager to get the portrait finished. As I picked up my brushes, I felt sorry for Peg – sorry that I had dragged her up there and painted a portrait she didn’t like, and sorry too for all the blows life had dealt her. She seemed quite a different character from the excited fabulist of her first sitting. Was it any surprise I had painted her as a woman haunted by disappointment?

Yet I still had a pinch of doubt about her story. In an atlas, I had confirmed that Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro did indeed lie on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet the heart of her tale was certainly true; that she had loved a man, and he had died. And now, by interpreting her essential character as tragic, I had upset her further. Poor Peg. I congratulated myself that I possessed so much that she would never have: a gentleman husband, wealth and rank. Life, I thought, is indeed a lottery. Save for the accident of her low birth, Peg might have been a person of fashion; a vibrant beauty, painted by an academician in oils.

Intending to make a quick end to it, I started mixing the lily green I had made especially from crushed flowers, hoping exactly to tint her eyes, rattling my tiny brush in the jar. Then I subjected her to my closest gaze.

‘Your eyes,’ I said, musingly. ‘They are a very unusual green; in different lights they reflect brown and blue. Do they perhaps reflect whatever light falls on them?’

Peg replied that she couldn’t say. ‘Do, please, sit very still.’ I looked very hard, then used my green with a wash of yellow ochre to tint the iris, and a ring of burnt umber. A pinprick of white titanium gave them startling life. I was happy with them; surely even Peg would admire her lively cat-like eyes.