Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Mrs. Barlow fussed over Minerva and Kitty as if they were landed gentry, serving them tea and tiny currant cakes.
Then she solved the problem of two new wardrobes with characteristic practicality.
“London winds are one thing, but Cornish winds are quite another,” she said. “You must be properly equipped.”
She went on to explain that there were four new day dresses in the back room that had been ordered and never collected, two that could be altered to fit Minerva, the other two very nearly Kitty’s size already.
For Minerva, one brown merino, one sturdy blue wool, cut plainly but well, their seams stitched twice for endurance.
They were not precisely what Minerva would have chosen, the brown a touch more severe than she would have preferred, but the alterations required were minor and the price a fraction of what two completely new dresses would have cost. She could not justify spending more purely for preference.
Besides, she did get to choose the material and style for her two visiting gowns, one of purple silk brocade, the other a deep green tartan silk satin with velvet trim, as well as fresh chemises, petticoats, a wool pelisse in soft gray, lined against the damp and the salt air, and a heavier cloak for the worst weather, with reinforced ties so the wind would not steal it away.
Her fingers strayed to a length of blue-green silk shot through with silver. Beautiful and delicate and impractical and pricey. She turned away.
As she stood before the looking glass while Mrs. Barlow pinned and measured, memories broke free of their chains, memories of Mama choosing fabrics and suggesting style, standing behind her adjusting the ribbons at her shoulder.
Memories of Papa calling her his beauty when she donned her newest gown.
Grief rose in her chest, sharp and painful.
She had not allowed herself to imagine she would ever purchase such things again. Yet here she was, choosing colors, touching fabrics, pretending she had not mourned the loss of that world every day since it had been ripped from her.
For an instant, the mirror reflected not the image of the woman she had become but the girl she had once been, unshadowed and unafraid.
Mrs. Barlow met Minerva’s eyes in the mirror.
“Cornwall is beautiful,” she said. “But beauty can be treacherous. You mind the cliffs.”
“And does Cornwall boast anything more pleasant than treacherous cliffs?” Kitty asked with a grin. “Handsome fishermen?” She cast a glance at Minerva. “Or a mysterious, dark-haired gentleman who rides the headlands?”
Mrs. Barlow snorted. “If you find one of those, you write and tell me.”
“Min will not notice such things,” Kitty teased. “She never does. Not even when the man stands directly before her.”
Minerva’s pulse stuttered as she recalled Dashiell Penrose standing before her, so close she had seen the ring of dark amber around the copper of his irises.
“Because they are rarely worth noticing,” she said, forcing a light tone.
“Oh, that is not true,” Kitty said with cheerful stubbornness. “Why just yesterday—”
“Kitty,” Minerva said, having no wish to discuss Mr. Penrose. A part of her wanted to keep the memory of the way he had looked at her close and private.
Mrs. Barlow, ever adept at reading her clients’ moods, changed the subject.
“My sister’s husband hails from Penzance.
He still has kin there,” she said. “They can be a superstitious lot, those who live along the coast.” She glanced at Kitty.
“Of course, those who live there do not hold a monopoly on superstition.”
Kitty sniffed and lifted her nose. “One person’s superstition is another person’s plain good sense.”
“Mayhap there are hints of truth in their superstitions,” Mrs. Barlow said.
Minerva turned in surprise. Mrs. Barlow was not a fanciful woman, not one given to putting stock in village tales. She prided herself on neat seams, even hems, and a head for numbers, not whispers and warnings.
“Well, now you must tell us,” Kitty said and clapped her hands in anticipation.
Mrs. Barlow tipped her head. “I recall a superstition about a bird… that if one flies into a house, it carries death on its wings.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Kitty said. “What else do they say?”
Mrs. Barlow cast her a sidelong glance then continued pinning. “Let me think… Seven years bad luck if you break a mirror.”
Kitty looked disappointed. “Everyone knows that.”
Mrs. Barlow worked in silence for a time, then said softly, “Some places are not like others. Thin places, my brother-in-law calls them, where the living and the dead don’t keep proper distance.
” She met Minerva’s gaze in the mirror. “And once something notices you in such a place… Well, it won’t forget. ”
The words sliced the small fitting room like winter sleet.
A prickle traced along Minerva’s spine as she imagined her cousin Catherine standing at the edge of a vast gray expanse, skirts whipping about her ankles, hair torn loose by the wind. Not falling. Not yet. Only standing there, listening.
Her breath caught.
Had Catherine been alone in that house, listening to the wind until it began to call her name?
The fitting room grew close, the air warm from the small coal grate. Minerva felt as if the walls were edging toward her, the air too thick. She could not breathe. She could not—
On a shallow exhale, she tapped her index finger against her thigh. Once. Twice. Thrice. Her imagination was leading her to places dark and frightening. Nothing more.
Heat flared beneath her skin, sharp and humiliating. How foolish. Catherine had been elderly, infirm, in her dotage according to Mr. Granger. She had wandered too close to the edge and fallen.
And yet—
Minerva’s gaze drifted again to her own reflection.
The woman in the glass looked composed, sensible, modern enough to dismiss country superstitions.
But beneath that composure lay an element of fragility.
Fear had lived inside her long before she had learned of her Cornwall inheritance, long before Catherine’s death.
“We shall guard the windows and bar the door against any errant birds that come knocking,” she said, keeping her tone light. “And as for spirits on the headlands…if they walk, they may keep to their own business. I have no quarrel with the dead.”
But even as she spoke, her fingers brushed unconsciously at the hollow of her throat where the pendant lay, cool and inert.
Mrs. Barlow studied her a moment longer in the mirror, as though she might say more. Or perhaps as though she had already said too much. Then she gave a brisk nod.
Minerva told herself she had no reason to feel unease. It was all superstition. Yet when she stepped down from the fitting stool, she could not quite rid herself of the sense of foreboding that crawled through her.
Kitty endured the measuring with far less solemnity. She turned this way and that, submitting to Mrs. Barlow’s tuts and adjustments with exaggerated patience.
She smoothed her hand over the sprigged blue silk she had chosen for her visiting gown and smiled, small and secret, almost shy.
“These are the finest things, Min. Truly the finest,” she said, her tone laced with awe, and Minerva took silent joy in Kitty’s pleasure.
After they had ordered all they needed, Mrs. Barlow quoted a sum that was far less than it ought to have been. Minerva knew it. Mrs. Barlow knew it. But neither remarked upon it.
Minerva only took Mrs. Barlow’s hands in her own and said, “Thank you.”
For the clothing. For the kindness. For taking a chance and hiring a desperate orphan girl all those years ago.
“I have two new girls to fill the spots you left open, so have no worry,” Mrs. Barlow said briskly, though her eyes shone. “Your dresses will be ready to leave when you are.”
True to her word, when they returned one week later, they were.
With their purchases wrapped in brown paper and stacked in a pile before them, Minerva and then Kitty received Mrs. Barlow’s warm embrace.
“I’ll miss you,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “You’re good girls, both of you.”
Then she drew herself up to her full height, donned her shopkeeper’s composure, and saw them out with their newly purchased goods as though it were an ordinary transaction.
The two women slept a final night in their rooms at the boarding house that had been their home.
And then there was nothing to do but go.
The train carried Minerva and Kitty from London to Exeter, the journey smoky and loud.
Minerva had considered first class for a fleeting instant, then discarded the thought, frugality winning over comfort.
They traveled second class, with its hard benches and a window that did not quite close, and strangers crowded close around them.
Minerva watched the scenery change beyond the smeared glass, ignoring the discomfort.
After overnighting at a modest inn, they set out by coach at first light.
The coach felt small and close, and Minerva sat beside Kitty, fingers twisted in the material of her skirt, her mouth gone dry.
She could not keep her thoughts from ruminating on her parents’ deaths as the vehicle rocked and swayed up a steep incline.
Every nerve taut, she used the array of tricks she had taught herself and caged her thoughts, refusing to set them free to roam places dark and dangerous.
She counted the seconds it took to complete each breath, tapped her fingers against her thigh with deliberate care, catalogued her memories of the ice shop in vivid detail, the smell of sugar and cream, the sweetness lingering on her tongue, played piano scales in her mind while her fingers mimed the movements.
Her fear had already begun to ease when Kitty’s hand found hers, fingers intertwining.
Hours dragged by, measured by the rattle of the wheels and the slow turn of the road.
“Look at the trees,” Minerva said, leaning close to the window. They rose from desolate moorland, their branches bent and angled all in one direction.
“They grew with the wind,” Kitty said.
“They did not break.” Minerva shook her head. “They bent and survived.”
“Not so different from us,” Kitty said. She pushed an errant curl from her forehead and tucked it beneath her bonnet.
“I liked the green woodlands better. So cool and pretty. And the smell so alive. Not like London at all.” The curl fell free once more.
She sighed. “Between the train and this coach, it feels like we’ve been traveling for mo-o-onths.
” Her voice jumped as they hit a particularly deep rut in the road. “Do you think we’re almost there now?”
Minerva made a sound that only vaguely resembled a laugh. “‘Almost’ is perhaps an optimistic observation.”
Kitty offered a wry smile. Her curls were wilted, her face pale, purple smudges beneath her eyes.
She smoothed her hand over her skirt. The dark blue wool had looked neat and resolute when they’d collected their new garments from Mrs. Barlow.
Now it was rumpled and stained, marked where damp and dust had settled into its weave.
Minerva’s brown merino had fared no better.
The sturdy folds hung tired and wrinkled, the sharp lines softened by wear.
She did not think that smoothing the skirt would accomplish much of anything.
After a time, the road began a subtle descent, the air now laced with the tang of salt. The coach lurched past a squat stone marker, its edges rounded by years of wind and rain, its surface mottled by lichen. The words FOWEY 5 MILES were carved in shallow block letters.
“I think ‘almost’ applies now,” Kitty said.
Minerva was about to reply when the pendant grew warm at the hollow of her throat and a shivering unease twisted through her. She could not name the reason. She only knew that something felt wrong.
A thin, drawn-out rasp scraped along the side of the coach, moving by slow inches.
Minerva started. “Did you hear that?”
Kitty only looked confused and studied her face, concern etching her features. “I heard nothing.”
A moment later, Minerva heard it again, a brittle, grating slide, as though a single sharp talon traced the line of the coach.
Certainty sank through her, swift and absolute.
Something had drawn close beside the coach, something not right.
If she dared look, she would see it keeping pace beyond the glass, just as she had seen the woman outside the shop in the rain.
A woman who had been there and then was gone as if she had never been there at all.
The air thickened, damp and heavy in her lungs. Prickling unease skittered along her spine.
She knew there was something out there, something that marked her presence. Something that waited for her.
The pendant was hot against her skin now, as though it acknowledged her suspicions—
No.
She drew a slow breath and forced the outlandish thoughts aside. Foolishness. Nothing more than nerves and imagination, sharpened by fatigue and too many hours in this cramped coach.
She leaned forward and looked out. And saw nothing.
The absence did not ease her.
Fatigue settled over her like a shroud, making her limbs heavy and her thoughts slow.
“Min?” Kitty said.
Minerva forced a shaky laugh. “I am only tired of this coach.”
But the fading heat of the gold against her skin lingered as the coach continued on, rocking on the rutted road that curved toward the coast.