Chapter 2 #2
The thought of Carlyle inside Thistlemarsh made Mouse feel physically ill. The sound of his shoes hitting the floor while he swanned through the halls where Mouse, Roger, and Bertie spent their last happy days together rang in her skull like the dreadful tick of a clock.
She wondered if her uncle had gone completely mad before his death.
Lord Dewhurst knew that he was dying. The extent of his illness was clear even before Mouse left for the Front.
Cancer of the lungs, the doctors had said.
At first, it seemed as though he wanted to fight it, but as soon as Bertie died, he stopped looking for treatment.
John wrote to her of her uncle’s decline, so when his death came, it was not a surprise.
Clearly, he gave as much weight to his own health as he did to the survival of Thistlemarsh.
Mouse had suspected her uncle might threaten to keep money from Roger, the bastard.
She even planned for it, squirreling away her meager nursing salary to save enough for a few months in a hospital.
However, the shock of her uncle gifting the house to Carlyle was a dagger in the gut.
She could stand anyone but Carlyle. And that was the point, Mouse thought.
Her uncle would rather have Carlyle inherit Thistlemarsh than her, despite everything he had done to Bertie.
“What are Lord Dewhurst’s conditions, exactly?” she said, her voice soft, clean, ladylike, tamping down the rage biting at her throat like a pack of hounds.
Beckett held the paper closer to his face, so close that his button nose nearly brushed the words.
“You are not to sell Thistlemarsh Hall. If you try, you will lose all rights to the house and the title. Everything will instantly go to Mr. Carlyle.”
“You already said that. Anything else?”
“Nothing is to be fundamentally altered about Thistlemarsh. You are not to get rid of any of his furniture, including the…taxidermy.” Beckett snuck a glance at the worn tiger pelt on the floor.
“Although he doesn’t mention the grounds, so you may be able to do some more significant work there, if you wish.
Servants are to keep their current roles unless they choose to leave.
If they do choose to leave, Lord Dewhurst ensured that they would receive their pensions or reference letters, whichever they prefer. ”
“And is Uncle’s valet to stay on to dress a ghost?”
“The valet has already resigned, along with most of the staff. I believe you have the butler, the groundskeeper, and the housekeeper, although she has put her notice in and will only stay through until tomorrow.”
“So, I won’t have to worry much about that condition,” Mouse said. Beckett ignored her and continued with his list.
“You must repair the house within the month.”
Mouse tried not to react, but she could not help the gasp that escaped her lips. Her uncle might as well have given her an hour, for all the good a month of work on the expansive Hall and grounds would do her.
“What does the word ‘repair’ entail, exactly? Am I to rebuild Thistlemarsh from its foundations?”
“No, there is an extensive list of repairs here.” Beckett gestured to the stack of papers in front of him.
“I am to judge if significant enough work has been done by the end of the month. The largest items are restoring the crumbling walls, reinforcing the floors, repairing any broken windows. There is more, but you can look yourself.”
“And I assume my uncle did not offer any other options.”
“Well, he did present one alternative. Thistlemarsh could go to you without the repairs, if you marry within the month.” Beckett said the words softly, as though preventing her from hearing them would curb her ire. She bit down on a bitter laugh.
“I had no idea my uncle was so invested in my personal life. I had best start working now. I have much to do on both fronts,” Mouse said drolly. “But, before you go, what exactly did the Thistlemarsh Faerie covenant say?”
Beckett pulled out a brittle paper from the pile, complete with a cracked wax seal. “The original agreement was in Faerie and I’m afraid I am not fluent, but it roughly translates to:
“ ‘A cycle of the moon is the time you must prove worthy of our favor. Fail and you will doom your home to something graver. When the bells toll twelve, will you succeed or waver?’ ”
Mouse pulled the paper close, her nose wrinkling in distaste at the jagged handwriting. “Who translated this? They’ve done a shoddy job.”
Beckett shrugged. “It had to rhyme, didn’t it?”
“But it barely does,” Mouse said.
Before he could respond, a creak in the wood paneling drew Beckett’s attention to the corner of the room. Dawson emerged from a shadow behind the bookshelf.
Secret passages veined the walls of Thistlemarsh. When Mouse first arrived as a child, she often got lost. Her childhood apartment in Manchester only had one room, which led off into the stairs and the shared bathroom, so Thistlemarsh’s labyrinthine passageways overwhelmed her in the beginning.
To learn the paths as clearly as she could, she mapped Thistlemarsh like a giant doll’s house, as intricate as the ones in the jeweled shop windows that decorated the high street. Yet even with this map, she would still stumble upon rooms tucked into corridors and between walls.
After her father’s death during their second winter at Thistlemarsh, Mouse was alone.
The boys were at Eton for nine months of the year, so she was the only one present when her father succumbed to a disease of the heart.
Lord Dewhurst had not even bothered to attend the funeral, nor did he send money for the boys to come back.
At first, Mouse’s grief prevented her from doing much except crying and writing to Roger.
Thistlemarsh itself nourished her during this time, like the hand of her mother reaching out to her through time.
The passageways housed the stories from Lady Blakeney’s Tales, becoming glens and snowcapped mountains in Mouse’s imagination.
Mr. Hobb, the groundskeeper, indulged her as they attempted to imagine the purpose of the hidden rooms. Mouse was always ready for them to be Faerie spy nooks, where they could catalog the offenses of their human hosts.
Though he did not stifle her speculation, Mr. Hobb thought they were only built to keep the servants out of sight of guests.
“Shall we prepare a room for you, Lady Dewhurst?” Dawson asked, staring straight ahead. “Perhaps the West Solar, overlooking the village?”
“No, Dawson, there is no need for finery. I will stay in the Matchbox, as always,” she said.
Dawson balked. Mouse wondered why. He was the first to call it the Matchbox, jeeringly, to the other servants when he thought she could not hear.
Why keep up the pretense now? “A Matchbox suits a mouse very well, don’t you agree, Mr. Beckett?
What was good enough for Miss Dunne should be good enough for Lady Dewhurst.”
Beckett wiped at his mustache instead of responding. John squeezed Mouse’s shoulder. She could not decide if the movement was a comfort or a reprimand.
“I return to London this evening, but I should be back in the village at the end of the month to judge your progress. I will use Lord Dewhurst’s list to make an educated decision about the work you’ve done.
” Beckett continued, “We can reassess the situation at that time. I will leave your uncle’s instructions here for you to consult. ”
“Very well.” She stood, depositing her teacup and saucer next to the paperwork. “By then, I’m sure I’ll have the project well in hand.”
Mouse held her hand out to Beckett, willing it not to tremble. Instead, he bowed slightly, not touching it.
“As you wish, your ladyship.” Beckett hurriedly packed his bag and left.
Mouse sagged back into the chair when the door clicked behind him. A series of cracks in the ceiling above formed a map of another world, with dark stains marking the seas.
“Well, it’s clear why Bertie hated Beckett. He’s terribly unsympathetic,” John said, looking over the papers. “This list of repairs is extensive, Mouse. Are you sure you want to take this on? It might be better to leave it.”
“Not to Carlyle,” she said. “Never to Carlyle. Besides, I’d be a coward if I ran out now. Father would have been ashamed of that.”
“I don’t think your father could be ashamed of you if he tried.” John laid the paper down and nudged the hem of her dress with his foot. “How about I go back to the cottage to start supper? You get settled here in your attic and come see me when the coast is clear.”
“You are always so sensible. Why can’t you let me be miserable for five minutes?” Mouse huffed, but she took his hand when he held it out to her.