Chapter Fourteen A Fair Hand #2
‘Not for a long while and not like this,’ said Isolde, groaning as she sank down onto the settee in exactly the spot where Mr Aldridge had sat. ‘Despite her reckless behaviour, she fears the Bucka and I believe she fears me.’
Branok nodded. ‘Well, the curate will need to be buried in the church grounds, as is Godly, the same for Wenna.’
‘It’s too big a risk and we’ll be seen,’ said Jack. ‘Plus, the warden digs each grave, he would spot a new one.’
The soil would be sodden, too, and heavier for it.
Kensa wrapped her arms around herself as she stared at the two bodies. ‘Then what do we do with them?’ She had no urge to sing. A violent death did not require melody, it needed action or vengeance or justice. ‘Are we going to kill Merrin?’
‘We’re still in the church grounds here,’ said Isolde, not deeming her question worth a reply.
‘Why not hide them in the garden, below the hives? No one will disturb the bees.’ What’s more, the hives were vacant, their occupants taking up space at the cottage in Bohortha.
Kensa had never thought bees to be clever, yet they’d known enough to flee Merrin’s unnatural presence – or, at least, sought the closest help where it could be found.
It was done at nightfall. Both the mine overseer and his son were used to working in darkness and were left to churn the earth to the right depth for a grave.
Meanwhile, the wise woman and her apprentice devised a plan to cover the curate’s absence.
Wenna had no family and had been a widow since her late husband’s loss.
Mr Aldridge had never married and his only relation was a brother, mentioned in his sermons and never in a good light.
There had always been rumours about him and his housemaid, which was what Isolde preyed on.
When the men returned inside, treading filth onto the newly cleaned floor, she explained their plan.
‘We’ll leave a letter for Sir George Trevanion and he’ll inform the main church in Falmouth that the pair have absconded.
Now, my scrawl is too recognisable, for it marks every tonic and salve from here to Portloe.
We shall need another to write it. What’s your handwriting like, Kensa? ’
‘I can’t do the joined-up letters, but—’
‘That won’t do.’
‘Who could we trust to help us?’ Branok’s clothes were stiff with mud and his fingers were clasped around the last unbroken teacup, though it held only water. ‘A scholar with fair penmanship? That will mean a trip to St Mawes and Mr Aldridge’s absence will be discovered by morning.’
Jack cleared his throat and swung his head slowly in Kensa’s direction. ‘There is one who comes to mind, one who could help us.’
‘No,’ barked Kensa.
‘Elowen is the best student Miss Latham has ever had,’ continued Jack. ‘She’s good at her letters and young enough to not have her hand recognised, not by the magistrate or his serving folk, either.’
‘Who says we can trust her?’ A long pause greeted Kensa’s question.
‘What if she tells people?’ It was a weak defence.
‘There has to be someone else – anyone else.’ Again, no reply came, only a lengthy silence exchanged between the three who stared her down.
‘You don’t know her, she’s not – I mean, she is, only— Ah, fine! ’
The hour was late in Portscatho. Kensa brought no lantern with her to her mother’s front door.
It was safest to go without light, to avoid stares or enquiry.
And she knew the way. Everyone in the village slept, bar the occasional cat who flashed its watchfulness in Kensa’s direction.
Her clothes stank, sour with lime and bodily fluids not her own.
Worse, she was nervous. Truthfully, Elowen was a good choice.
And yet to go to her now sat ill in Kensa’s chest. As though, by asking for her sister’s help, she was losing her own place in the community, handing it over to the younger girl who – by rights – should have it anyway.
What’s more, pulling Elowen from her warm bed and into this dangerous situation knotted her stomach, even if the worst threat was gone.
She was fragile, after all. Would learning about such a creature as Merrin affect her health?
Perhaps it would spark further nightmares …
Kensa’s rap on the door was a quiet one. She half-hoped no one would answer it. Elowen did. Her nightdress was short on her frame and a ribbon held her long plait in place. When she spoke, her voice was rumpled from sleep. ‘Are you here for the Coast Guard?’
‘I need your help.’
Elowen froze, momentarily, then stepped out onto the street and gingerly closed the door behind her. There was a shrewd fit to her face. ‘Pardon?’
‘You heard me.’ Kensa wanted to turn around.
Throw a snappish retort over her shoulder.
Thunder all the way back to the curate’s house.
Only, that would mean returning to Isolde’s frustration and Branok’s impatience and Jack’s disappointment.
It was the last one which stuck, which bid her to say, ‘Grab your coat and I’ll explain on the way. ’
Elowen did not budge from the front step. ‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Because I’m your sister,’ Kensa said, the same excuse as at the May Day festival. It hadn’t worked then, why would it work now?
‘You are when it’s convenient.’
A grumbled call came from within their mother’s cottage.
‘It’s nothing, Pa,’ replied Elowen, though she took a long second to do so. ‘Only the baker’s dog out again, I’ll fetch it home.’
Mr Skewes’s reply was a low snore.
Elowen dipped inside briefly, then returned wearing her boots, a warm shawl and a guarded expression. ‘Should I bring anything with me?’
‘We only need your hands,’ replied Kensa.
Elowen’s step faltered.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get ’em back after we’re done.’
As the pair climbed through Portscatho, the first stirrings began.
One or two hull-scrapes over stone. Slaps of rope and basket.
Tallow candles or rush lights flaring in the harbour-side houses.
Soon, the fishermen would row to meet the dawn and the shoals it brought.
Even high on the hill, the pair could hear the sea’s heavy rolling.
Kensa expected her sister to ask questions and demand to know what was happening. Elowen said nothing. Grew smaller. Stepped carefully. Spoke only when they reached the curate’s cottage and stopped outside its door.
‘This is about Mr Aldridge,’ Elowen said hurriedly. ‘Am I in trouble?’
‘No,’ said Kensa, confused.
Elowen’s fingers toyed with a loose thread on her shawl as she was taken inside, to the day room, where Isolde and the miners waited. As soon as she entered the space, Elowen’s eyes landed on the empty boards at her feet where the rug had been. There she saw the bloodstain.
Her head whipped round to meet Kensa’s. ‘What’s going on?’
Jack was gentle in his words and wording. ‘It seems Mr Aldridge has decided to—’
‘He’s dead,’ interrupted Isolde.
Before any other explanation could be offered, Elowen asked, ‘Was it Merrin?’
Kensa began to cough, spit catching in her injured windpipe. Both miners had matching frowns on their faces. Isolde, however, remained impassive. ‘Yes.’
‘What! No,’ blurted Kensa. ‘How’d you know? Are you—’
‘Mr Aldridge asked me to teach his new companion manners and trusted me to keep it secret from everyone,’ said Elowen.
‘I showed Merrin how to conduct herself, what to talk about in polite society and how to dress herself and powder her face.’ A glance down to the bloodied floor.
‘When we were alone, Merrin told me what she was, though I do not think she told Mr Aldridge. Or, if she did, he was too besotted to care.’
There was no shift in Isolde’s tone. ‘Did you keep this affair secret?’
‘Yes, until now,’ said Elowen.
Kensa pulled on her sister’s arm. ‘You should have told me.’
‘Would you have listened?’
‘Yes!’
Elowen’s forehead wrinkled as she studied her sibling’s face. ‘Who says it’s your business to know what I do? Merrin understands me; we’re more alike than you or I—’
‘I think that’s enough,’ said Isolde hastily.
Elowen drew away, pulling her arm from Kensa’s hold, careful not to stand on the stained wood. ‘May I go now?’
‘Not quite yet,’ said Branok.
Quickly, the overseer explained what must be done and how, gesturing to the writing desk in one corner, where ink, paper and quill sat beside a stubby candle.
Of course, it would be necessary to remove Mr Aldridge’s treasured possessions to make it seem as though he had taken flight.
Jack offered to hide them in a forgotten shaft at Porthbeor Mine.
‘If you want my help, I will give it,’ said Elowen, ‘for whatever part I played in Mr Aldridge’s passing, even if he was a fool.’
Kensa shook her head. ‘I thought you liked Mr Aldridge?’
Elowen shrugged with one shoulder, a mannerism Kensa recognised in herself. ‘Everyone assumes I like everyone.’
The fair-haired girl worked quickly, taking a pen in hand and practising her script on a blank parchment page. ‘Mr Aldridge had me transcribe letters for him on occasion and he wrote exactly as he preached.’
‘You mean boring and self-important?’
‘Kensa,’ chided Jack.
‘No, she’s right,’ said Elowen.
It took several attempts, as the sun began to show herself – spearing onto the desk where the younger woman worked and turning her hair sun-white, almost Bucka-ish – until the five settled on a letter that suited their proposed lies.
It was likely that the warden, Ephraim, would be the one to find it, set on a low table in the hall.
A new rug was brought down from an upstairs room in order to hide the floorboards, then Branok fed Mr Aldridge’s sermons to the fire, those ones he had yet to preach and now, sadly, never would.
Elowen pressed her wrist to her mouth and released a sob.
Kensa wondered if her grief was for the deceased curate or the waste of fine-quality paper.
As the sky brightened enough to see by, Kensa noticed how thin she was.
Here, for the first time, her sister had made a mistake.
The guilt Kensa had felt over Mr Aldridge’s demise was suddenly heaped on Elowen’s shoulders. She thought she’d feel better about it.
‘We have done what we can,’ said Isolde.
Once the group departed, the door was shut on Mr Aldridge’s cottage. Their goodbyes were stilted, with Jack lingering only a second longer than his father, keen to sleep for an hour or two prior to his next shift starting.
Jack’s hands smelled like earth.
Jack’s hands had buried Mr Aldridge.
Yet this knowledge did not seem to be a burden to him. In fact, he seemed to take it all in his stride. Kensa found herself staring at his sleeves and the grit collected there.
At his cleared throat, she lifted her eyes, yet Kensa was the one to speak. ‘This isn’t the first time you’ve helped Isolde clear up a mess, is it?’
‘It’s never usually as bad as this, though it isn’t unusual.’ He looked as though he wanted to say more and eventually settled on, ‘You remember the Morgawr.’
‘Yes,’ she said, frowning.
Jack held the tail to her coat, to Mr Aldridge’s coat, fixing his stare on that and not on her, rubbing at the felt. ‘I couldn’t stop looking at you on that beach, I kept wanting to pull you away from it, it was so big and you were so small.’
‘You were small then, too.’
‘I suppose,’ he admitted.
It seemed a sad comfort to know he’d seen her, that when she’d thought herself invisible to all, ill-placed and unwanted, he’d seen her and cared.
‘Kensa … ’ he began, trailed off.
She did not know what to say either. They had always been good at starting things, fights, mainly. It was the continuing and the what came after that stumped them both. Because that seemed riskier, like something they couldn’t come back from.
His grip tightened and it pulled her a fraction closer.
‘Kensa … ’ he said again, and she liked her name in his mouth, how it sounded, with a rasp and wanting he’d never state.
‘Jack,’ she replied, quiet and soft, both like and unlike herself.
‘Be careful,’ he said at last, releasing her, making their exchange sound like a chastisement, the way he made everything sound.
‘I am,’ sniffed Kensa, though he was already gone. And sometimes she wondered if she was too careful when it came to him, and she wondered why he was too careful with her, too.
Lingering in the cottage doorway was Elowen.
There was a strange set to her expression: resolved and hardened.
Her shawl sat lopsidedly on her shoulders.
By now, it was half unravelled with how often she pulled on that loose thread.
Kensa’s satisfaction was a smug toad in her gullet.
Finally, Elowen was in trouble for a change.
And yet, she noticed a sallowness to her sister’s skin enough to rival the dawn sky.
Kensa’s question was quiet enough, one she had often uttered: ‘Are you well?’
Elowen raised her eyes and did not reply, though she had most certainly heard.
‘Go, I will see you at the cottage,’ called Isolde to her apprentice. ‘I must speak with your sister privately.’
For once, Kensa did not argue. She affixed the dead curate’s coat tightly around her soiled clothes, turned her back on Elowen and returned to Bohortha alone.