The Penny Heart (50 page)

‘Good God,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell me they are married? It isn’t lawful – it can’t be.’

‘No, it is quite another matter. Here, I have kept it as safe as diamonds, screwed up in the brim of my cap.’ At this he unfurled the strip of newsprint, and I read, with increasing bewilderment:

1793. June 17th. Miss Sybilla Claybourn, spinster, after a protracted and tedious illness, in her 89th year. For many decades lived a recluse at Riverslea Park, near Earlby, Yorkshire. Her afflictions of mind were so great that, notwithstanding a good fortune, she knew no true enjoyment in life. Having left no issue this branch of the Claybourns of Yorkshire finishes with her, and the considerable though neglected Claybourn estate will fall to other branches of the family.

‘It cannot be the same person.’

‘It’s an unusual name. Tell me, did you ever meet Miss Claybourn?’

I remembered an elegant woman on horseback, moving at the front of a mass of hunters.

‘I think so. Well – I did not meet her – but I saw her. She was quite different from this description: young, fashionable, proud.’

‘Think, Mrs Frankland. How was it you got the notion that this Miss Claybourn was your rival?’

‘She was our closest neighbour.’

‘Yes, I understand that – the newspaper confirms it. But that is not my question.’

When had I first suspected Miss Claybourn? When I found the long black hair? For a long day, after I left the captain to his rest, I puzzled over the matter. There had been that waspish letter from her, my sight of her with the hunt, Mrs Barthwaite’s comment, the insights offered by her servant, Sue. Tentatively, I proposed an answer to the captain’s question. And one after another of my former assumptions, like a house of cards from which one card is removed, trembled and wavered and collapsed in a great untidy heap.

A few weeks later, when I returned to Glasshouse Street, Mrs Huckle made her opinions exceedingly well known. Most mornings I woke from exhausted sleep to hear her gossiping with the maids on the landing.

‘I cannot say what she is doing here. To think they have fobbed me off with a workhouse trull. I’ve heard such patter as hers before. Turns up all busked up like a lady and then look how matters turn. Next I suppose she’ll do a flit and leave me out of pocket.’

Damn her for the dog’s mother, I whispered under my breath, an indelicate but apt phrase I had learned from the streetwalkers on the lying-in ward. Then, taking Henry into my arms, I sang to him to cover her voice, and decided I should always be happy, so overjoyed was I with my little man. Sally, Mrs Huckle’s maid, was my lifeline, while I awaited Mr Tully’s reply. The eldest of seven children, she missed her little brothers and sisters and liked nothing better than to dandle a baby on her lap. Every day she smuggled up scraps for me from the kitchen – for even the scrapings from the other lodgers’ plates were a feast to me, after poorhouse gruel. She brought me jugs of good porter too, to help my milk, and pails of hot water to wash myself and my little one’s clouts.

Then, at last, Mrs Huckle made her visitation. She told me she had indulged me long enough. She reminded me I had been given notice, and that a number of respectable persons were awaiting my room even now. And there was also the problem, she said, of my being a widow, and yet a new mother. For she could do her sums as well as any scholar, and if my husband had died when I said he had, my baby was not welcome in such a respectable lodging as hers.

I would brook none of her insults. The captain’s loan had paid what I owed her, and for a further week’s rent besides. ‘And when that expires,’ I spat, ‘no one will rejoice more than I to leave your establishment.’ She twisted her mouth in a so-be-it grimace and flounced away downstairs.

In preparation to leave Glasshouse Street, I sorted through my few belongings, racking my brain as to where I might go. While searching for possible employment, I had seen a card in Miss Le Toye’s window advertising work for a Fan Painter. Though painting flowers or curlicues would earn me very little, I thought it might allow me to repay the captain and rent a room of the dreariest sort. At the notion of it, my outrage at Michael returned, so I bundled up Henry and set off to visit the postmaster at Golden Square. I believe the poor man pitied me; he even offered me a chair as I waited for the last post of the day. It was a good thing I was sitting, for that day Mr Tully’s reply finally arrived.

Dear Mrs Croxon,

It is with some dismay and surprise that I received your letter. Madam, I must wonder if you are quite sane, to give out such contrary instructions. I believe I have acted honourably in all your affairs, for as you will recollect, I advised you in no uncertain terms against your recent actions. I repeat that I am disappointed that you have acted so wilfully against my advice. I trust that you are enjoying the proceeds of the land sale at Whitelow, and am astonished that your grasp of your affairs is so rudimentary that you still expect to collect interest from a property you no longer own. As for the Hoare’s account, I have merely followed the instructions you issued on the 5th January. I must protest, Madam, at your tone, and would express my wish that this be an end to our correspondence. I apologise for repeating myself once again, but I am no longer in a position to represent you, the requisite accord between ourselves being absolutely extinguished.

Your servant,

Tully

I believe I might have sunk to the floor had not the kindly postmaster offered me a supporting arm and a cup of sugared tea.

‘I am only a little faint,’ I said, folding the letter up tighter and tighter, into a horrible hard wad between my fingers. Then, fearing he might question me further, I fled back to Glasshouse Street.

Back in my room I stood and paced. I could not stop the phrase ‘I have been ruined’ repeating in my mind. Did Michael hate me so much? Did he believe it his right to steal everything I owned? And further, Mr Tully’s letter infuriated me, with its inference that I had instructed him myself.

I longed to confide in the captain; to have his wise head advising me, as well as his wiry arm defending me. But his injuries would keep him in the men’s ward for another month at least, and then he must convalesce at Mrs Huckle’s. On my last visit I had noted his wavering eyes and white, stubbled beard. I could not confide in such a sick man, never mind enlist him. Instead, I let him persuade me to borrow whatever I needed from his chamber.

Tears welled in my eyes at the prospect of Henry living in want. His mother had been a foolish dupe, perhaps, but Henry deserved better from the world. Why should he spend his life being shunted between shabby lodging houses, in the company of demi-reps and drunkards? As I gathered my belongings, a number of loose papers fell to the floor. Resentfully I stared at the portraits of Michael that had once held me spellbound. Then, on a curious whim, I pinned them across my wall as I had used to do at Palatine House. Standing beneath them I felt, as the Bible says, that the scales fell from my eyes. No wonder I had loved Michael best when he was sleeping. Overwhelmingly, I had sketched a man whose sulking mouth and brooding eye revealed profound unhappiness.

I picked up my sketches of Delafosse Hall. There stood the long drive crowded with unkempt trees, the grand entrance as I had first seen it, choked with leaves that rattled in the breeze. I had thought it a living entity then, its sighing breath exhaling like a weary beast. There was the long view of the Hall at dusk, like a stately doll’s house with its toy of a woman standing at my studio casement. Was she the lady of the Hall, or a prisoner? I tried to remember my thoughts as I had painted her in a silent, trance-like reverie. Was she intended to represent me, or someone else who had once inhabited the Hall? I could no longer remember. What I did recollect was Michael’s despondency over his father’s relics. He had said he felt unworthy as a man and that he longed to leave.

Here, beneath, were the sketches I had made after my accident. There were the sinuous limbs of the statues in the summerhouse, once the scene of sensuous pleasure, but since fallen into decay. There was my sketch of Harpocrates, silent in his recess, pointing to the tunnel that led deep beneath the heart of the Hall. The story of Michael’s mother and Ashe Moncrieff making their lovers’ assignations now seemed unbearably sad. No wonder there had been so many old tales of footfalls at night in the Hall. I thought of my mother-in-law’s youthful hopes, casting a blight that still fell on her love-begotten son.

FERREA VIRGA EST, UMBRATILIS MOTUS
, I read on the drawing of the tower and its sundial. The York bookseller had translated the motto as ‘The rod is of iron, the motion of shadow.’ I had felt distaste at the motto that day in York, and the engraving of Death’s shadow, descending on the sleeping lovers. Shadows, shadows, I urged myself. What iron figure casts these shadows?

Lastly, I picked up a hasty sketch I had made when ill, after my fall. It was that dreadful scene that had overwhelmed me, of two faceless lovers leaving the tower together. I studied it closely, at the same time resurrecting the event in my inner eye, trying to amplify the scene from every angle. My view had been limited, but even from a back view Michael had not looked at all like the conquering lover; he was slump-shouldered, not even touching the woman.

The black-haired woman, on the other hand, the woman who was neither the lost and faded matron, Mrs Harper, nor the ancient recluse, Sybilla Claybourn, was upright and imperious. The soft swish of metallic jewellery resurrected itself, too; a slinking, chain-like sound. I stared at the drawing, but there was no answer in the grain of the paper or the image flickering in my memory. My head hurt. I took a sip of water from the jug. Beside it stood Mrs Harper’s thimble.

Like a distant echo, I remembered the captain saying of the thimble-rigger, ‘A good conjurer will get you to see what was never there. It is all done with directing you to look the other way.’ With every particle of my intelligence I did my best to turn the story about, inside out and back to front. Who was it cast the shadow? What was it I had seen that was never there?

Then I saw it. And instead of a house of collapsing cards, I saw that same pack of cards new-configured, as if by magic, into a cruel and cunning game.

29

Delafosse Hall

September 1793

~ To Make a Hangi Cooking Pit ~

Dig your pit deep and place your dry faggots inside. Place inside your firestones, each about the size of a man’s fist. Light your fire and when near to red-hot, arrange the stones neatly at the bottom using two sticks. Lay on your wet grass and leaves and over it your kai or food, your
raupo
and fern roots, and whatsoever fish or flesh is desired. From a hollow gourd, sprinkle with water to make much steam, and quickly lay more green stuffs upon it and bury all within the earth. Leave all the day, for the
hangi
pit will never spoil your food.

Traditional cooking method of the Maori people

The hungry ghosts were gathering for the feast tonight. Ma Watson was whimpering for her plum cake. Janey was leering her glass-ragged smile. Brinny couldn’t sit still for the weals from her final public flogging. Granny sat nodding in the corner, a dribble of blood staining her chin. And the final one lurked somewhere in a dim corner of the room. Hanging from the ceiling she was, spinning slowly this way and that.

Mary, alone of all of them, had survived. She gazed triumphantly about the glorious dining room. Only she had possessed the crazy mettle to make a bolt for it. Only she now chewed that devilish sweet morsel: vengeance.

‘Here’s to you, Mrs Grace Croxon.’ She raised her glass, slopping a few drops on the linen. ‘The most open-handed pigeon ever caught.’ She drained the glass of ruby-rich claret. ‘Go ahead, help yourselves, girls.’ She waved a bountiful hand at the table. The dishes were laid with each dish exactly in its place, like the nine of diamonds on a playing card. Now this is grand, she thought, the white linen well-pressed, the warm light glimmering from a score of candles, the silver plate polished like mirrors. It was a feast in a picture book, a queen’s banquet in a fairy castle.