Eppie (77 page)

‘Yur,’
Wakelin answered insensitively, ‘you’re right there.’

‘At
least we’ve got Ep with us,’ Dawkin said, making light of their predicament. ‘She’s
bound to knock a few of ‘em down just giving ‘em one of her mean looks.’

Genevieve
made to wallop him.

Wise
to her ways, he leapt back.

From
further along, a roar of anger boomed through the tunnels, followed by an
ear-splitting blast from a pistol, a blood-curdling cry and, finally, silence.

Wakelin
sounded jolly. ‘Sounds like that’s one less to trouble us. We need to move on.’
Even without his urging, they had already set off.

The
further they crept, the quieter it became, the sound of wind wailing down the
innumerable tunnels left well behind.

A
cork of light, a cresset, flared in its holster on the wall.

Towards
the end of the tunnel was a scattering of empty kegs and mouldering sacks. Some
crates were filled with salted food and other provender. Others were stuffed
with sawdust. After scouring the burial pit, Genevieve was all too aware of the
odious smell of human flesh. Clearly these were the crates that had been used
to pack the bodies.

Alighting
upon a yawning cavern, her heart leapt in wonder. A cathedral of nature, this
truly was a world beneath a world. Mighty pillars of stone, like petrified tree
trunks, upheld its lofty roof. High above their heads, part of the roof had
collapsed. Sunlight filtered down. Rock walls shimmered like diamond dust as
though raindrops had sprinkled upon them and frozen.

Copper-miners
had hewn holes in the curtain of rock to provide handy shelves upon which to
place candles. These now served another purpose, as openings through which they
could peer into the cave, without giving away their presence.

To
Genevieve’s relief, after expecting to confront an ugly band of men, she saw
only two. Smoke rose from an open fire in the centre of the cavern. Jaggery was
huddled before the blaze. A miserable look on his face, he spread his hands to
its warmth as though it were winter. Meat sizzled on the spit, ready to be set
down on stones and disjointed.

Bodies
were strewn about the cavern.   

Not
far from where they crouched, she made out Thurstan’s slumped, dejected figure,
his hands dangling between his knees as though they were weighted with chains.

Through
Jaggery’s complaining bluster the listeners pieced together what had happened immediately
following the torching of the cotton mill. Squabbling had broken out amongst
some of those who returned to the caverns. Obsessed with the thought that the
men would give him away, Thurstan had killed them. One by one, over the subsequent
months, the remaining men tried to make fast their escape, and also met a swift
demise.

Thurstan’s
meal lay on a platter, balanced on the chest of a dead man. Drawing a knife
from his belt, he stabbed the meat. ‘Who’s on guard?  Molins?’

Jaggery
grinned wryly. ‘If my memory serves me right, you hung him last night after you
lost at poker.’

‘Did
I?  Mortui non mordent.’

‘Don’t
ya never leave off spouting gibberish?’

‘I
was reflecting that dead men do not bite.’

Jaggery
tore a leg off the roast meat, bones cracking. Grease dribbling down the sides
of his mouth he limped towards what, in the shadows and half-lights, looked
like a bundle of rags. ‘Here, tek it. Granted it ain’t as good as beef pie an’
a slug o’ rum sauce, but it’ll have ta do.’ 

Rowan
raised herself to a sitting position. 

Startled
at setting eyes upon her, Gabriel made to cry out her name. It was all Wakelin
could do to hold him back. He writhed beneath his hold, until he finally calmed.
With nods to show they understood one another, Wakelin took his hand from
Gabriel’s mouth.

First
they had to think of a plan of attack. Without guns this seemed impossible. 

Rowan’s
hair, usually tidily pinned at the back of her head, was concealed beneath a
kerchief, once white, now little more than a filthy cloth. Over the months she
had grown pale, languid and remote, her despairing, dead-looking eyes staring
from a face smeared and grimed where she had wiped away tears. 

There
was such quietude about her gentle, withdrawn manner. She seemed to be
listening for sounds very distantly heard. Listening, Genevieve realised, for
them. All those past months spent waiting and hoping against hope that she
would be rescued. Her heart seemed to burst within her when she thought about
what atrocities Rowan had witnessed. Like Gabriel, it was all she could do not
to rush to embrace her friend. 

Hunch-shouldered,
his expression one of revulsion, Jaggery spat gristle over Rowan’s lowered
head. ‘To hell with yer snivellin’ solemnity.’

‘Leave
her!’ Thurstan cried harshly.

Grasping
a pair of pliers, Jaggery gripped a rabbit that had been nailed through the
head to timbers set into the stone wall, and wrenched off its skin. ‘Lord knows
what you see in the demented woman. She’s as sullen as you. What’s more, ya
can’t squeeze a word outta her.’

‘She
is a mute,’ Thurstan answered solemnly.

Anguish
was in Gabriel’s voice. ‘What can he mean?’

Thurstan
and Jaggery were so busy hating one another that they were not aware of the
intruders, but Wakelin did not want to push their luck. ‘Shut it!’

‘More
like you’re the dumb one,’ Jaggery retorted, bitterly mocking. ‘You’re
bedevilled by her.’ Savagely, he flung down the flayed rabbit. ‘I’m sick o’
scavenging on coney and crow meat. I need a proper meal.’ Reaching down, he
tugged Rowan to her feet.

Thurstan’s
knuckles were taut around the hilt of his knife. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘You
might’ve stopped yer ears against the outside world, but I ain’t. Gabriel du
Quesne will pay handsome for her return. I’ll leave her body in the woods, grab
the ransom, and run.’

Thurstan
leapt to his feet in a fiendish fury. ‘She stays with me!’   

In
a desperate bid for liberty, Rowan fought against Jaggery’s hold. Wrenching her
wrist free, she made a half-hearted effort to escape from him, knowing that he
would soon catch up with her. Staggering around the rocks, her eyes opened wide
in astonishment. ‘Gabriel?’

In
a trice Jaggery was upon her. Spotting them, he was about to holler a warning
when Thurstan’s knife skimmed through the air and drove straight into his back.
The expression of flaring hatred in his eyes instantly paled into a glazed look
of horror and disbelief.

Genevieve
and the others backed off as he lurched towards them, his hands outstretched as
though aiming to grasp any unfortunate person who happened to be nearest to
him. Crumpling to his knees, he fell hard on the stone, face down.

A
stone skimmed through the air and struck Dawkin on the cheek.

Before
Wakelin and Dawkin could give chase, Thurstan had escaped through one of the tunnels
at the back of the cavern, his maniacal laughter echoing through the labyrinth.
‘That’s for the snowball, climbing-boy!’

It was late afternoon when the shower ceased. Genevieve
fetched a wicker basket and went to gather berries from the hedgerow. A sunbeam
broke through the ragged clouds, its warmth spilling upon the valley.

She
had not purposefully strolled towards Miller’s Bridge, but now she lingered. Gazing
wistfully upon her old home it was as though she could see into the future, to
a time when the cottage would return to nature. Spinning through the air a
stray ash seed would settle in the parlour and gracefully flourish. The
branching canopy would burst through the wind-blasted thatch where sparrows
happily built their nests. Ivy spreading its stranglehold, the walls, carefully
laid by Gillow’s great-grandfather, would collapse. In one, maybe two hundred
years a passer-by might chance upon a clump of cottage garden flowers dancing
in the breeze, the only marker that someone had once dwelt upon this plot of
land.

She
mourned the home she had lost, the way of life she had known and cherished
throughout her childhood. No matter how luxurious her present circumstances, no
other place could be the same.

In her restlessness she was struck by a tantalising thought.
It was madness to throw away her resplendent life at the manor. But, like the
ash seed, once her idea took a hold, she could not give it up. She gave herself
fully to the desire that she need never be without her beloved honeysuckle
cottage with its homely air of sinking comfortably into the ground. She
treasured it so dearly. 

She could be free. Free like Hortence’s
linnet, which she had released from captivity after the Wexcombes had left the
bird behind in their dash from the manor. She had been elated to see it flitting
between conifers, its twittering song expressing its happiness in regaining its
liberty.

The time was ripe for Eppie to
come home.

With the delight of a traveller returning, she stepped into
the neglected cottage.

Swags of cobwebs trembled upon the dusty loom. Fantasy or
no, she caught the thud-thud of the weaving pick and glimpsed Gillow turn to
smile at her.

In wistful silence, she wandered about the parlour. Except
for the scratching of mice in the larder it was as though the cottage slumbered.

Hessian still curtained the bedchamber from draughts. A
flaking moth and a dead spider lay upon the damp straw mattress on the wainscot
bedstead. Saints Matthew and Mark still gazed serenely upon the rocking cradle
and child’s commode.

Beside the ladder leading to Wakelin’s loft, a metal
cauldron hung from the fire-crane. No other pots, no griddle, kettle or frying
pan remained. The dresser, settle, kitchen table and chairs stood as though in
a heavy trance, waiting for the cottage to breathe again. To Eppie all these
things brought joy, as though she were reuniting with old acquaintances.

She picked up a wooden spoon that had been discarded on the
oak plank table. It brought to mind autumns past when the parlour was full of
steamy fragrance as she and Martha battled with preserves, the sharp aroma of
quince jelly rising from a bubbling pot. Testing the jam to see if it had set,
Martha would drip a little of the mixture into a saucer of water, whereupon, having
prodded the sweet stickiness into congealed waves, Eppie merrily sucked her
finger and declared her verdict. She pictured herself as a child, hopping onto
the stool before the dresser, proudly arranging honey crocks with their bladder
covers.

That the cottage smelt damp, the windowsill crumbled at her
touch, and the shattered pane remained unfixed all these years, none of these
things mattered. All she knew was that this cottage wanted her and she wanted
this cottage. 

She fetched down the tinderbox from the shelf above the fire
beam. The wall above still bore the stains where Gillow had slammed the fowl stew.
Using kindling to start a fire with the twigs and logs in the hearth, she
methodically worked the moss and striker.

It was snug in the cottage with the blaze roaring up the
chimney. Lost in her thoughts, she sat upon the fox-hide cushion before the
warmth, unaware of the passage of time.

A concern which constantly plagued her was the demise of the
Crusader Oak. Over the last few weeks the ancient tree had taken on a nightmare
form, its twisted, buckled trunk rapidly attacked by a fungal disease. Several branches
had torn away. One or two dangled like shattered arms, so tenuously attached
that it looked as though they would blow away in a gentle breeze. Other
branches, bark-flayed and holed by worms, jutted upwards, their tips jagged. The
tree should be cut down, Gabriel and Eppie both knew it, but they had agreed
this would not happen unless the disease showed signs of spreading to other
trees.

Evening fell with the strange swiftness of autumn dusk. Wind
moaned through the hedge, and blew parched leaves beneath the door.

Unbeknown to her, Dawkin crept indoors. Busy settling
matters with his lawyer, he had been away for several days, residing at Garn
Hall. Seating himself in Gillow’s chair, he plucked at stuffing which leaked from
an armrest ravaged by mice. Very deeply, very still, he watched Eppie, her
cheek on her hand, her forehead bright from the glowing flames.

‘Seems you were right about Colonel Catesby.’

She jumped, startled to hear his voice.

‘Straight after we discovered Thurstan in the caves, Catesby
requested a transfer. He’s joined troops led by Governor General Hastings in
India. Much gone on whilst I’ve been away?’

‘Gabriel has made Wakelin his bailiff.’

Made serious by the past, Dawkin had aged and hardened
somewhat, yet he was always ready enough to beam with genuine cheerfulness. ‘His
bailiff! Let’s hope he manages to lay off the gin. If not, he may spend his
days sleeping under hedges, like he did as a boy, when he was supposed to be
scaring birds from the corn fields. At least
I’ll
no longer have to work
for a wage. It ain’t every pauper gets left a hall as big as the whole of
Little Lubbock. On one occasion I found myself lost and was late for supper. The
servants had to come and find me. How d’ya reckon I’ll suit the life?’

‘There’ll be plenty of chimneys to sweep.’