Eppie (79 page)

It swiftly dawned upon Eppie that Thurstan had drifted into
a state of insanity. ‘I am truly sorry for you.’

He glared at her. ‘I have not come here to gain your pity!’

Martha became restless.

‘Here, take my son.’

Eppie’s relief at having her child in her arms was
immeasurable. ‘Perhaps,’ she thought, ‘if I do not rouse Thurstan’s wrath, if I
play upon his deranged mind, I might have a chance to escape from the cottage
and seek help from the labourers chatting in the lane.’ She said the first
thing that popped into her head. ‘Did you know Gabriel’s got his numbers all wrong
again? His papers are a right mess of blots.’

‘Blots?’

‘You can’t have forgotten how bad his work is?’

 ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten, you idiot boy. Do you take
me for a fool?’

Edging her way towards the door, she said chirpily, ‘Let’s
nip to the Brown Room. You can give Gabriel a sound thrashing.’ She placed her
hand upon the latch.

He grabbed her by the elbow. ‘Not so fast, Cousin
Genevieve!’

When she turned to face him, she saw that the vacant look in
his eyes had vanished.

‘Living close to the earth has made you as cunning as a fox,
but what you should know by now is that no one outwits me.’ He thrust her
towards the table. Ready to intercept should she attempt to flee, he took his
place on the comb-back chair opposite her.

Bubbling with anger and frustration, she asked, ‘Why have
you come here? What do you want?’

‘Talia.’

‘Talia is dead. I don’t know what you mean.’

‘When I was a boy, my father told me tales about
supernatural beings. The stories enthralled me. My mother and father regularly
held plays at our house in London. They and their friends dressed as ghosts.
Guests sat around the entrance hall, petrified. Ever since, I have believed a
soul is capable of survival outside of flesh and bone.’

Eagerness flickered in his bloodshot eyes. ‘Talia has never
haunted me, but she comes to you, does she not? At the cotton mill, when I took
hold of the locket, I saw her leading the ghosts. I know you saw her also for I
saw your look of astonishment.’ A flash of anger hardened his expression. ‘Even
Dung Heap has seen her ghost. After he stole you from the manor, I saw him
standing before Shivering Falls. He looked up at the stone bridge and shouted, “You
won’t regret this, Talia. My ma will love her.” ’

‘Wakelin has seen Talia’s ghost?’ Eppie said, stunned. ‘He
never told me.’

‘How dare she haunt that village idiot and not me?’

‘Why would you want her to haunt you? After all, you killed
her because she did not return your affection. My mother told me so, shortly
before her own death.’

‘I loved Talia!’ he declared vehemently.

‘If you did, that was a fine way to show your love, making
her life miserable by pestering her.’

‘No matter how hostile Talia was towards me I never wished
her any harm. I only wished to be close to her so that I might protect her.’

‘Why would she need your protection?’

He drew off his hat and slowly began to unburden himself of
his disguise. It was as though he needed her to see the solemnity in his face. ‘The
night my uncle went to drown the kittens I was there, in the woods. A short
while earlier my mother had disturbed my aunt and uncle whilst they were
entertaining the Bulwars. She had run into the garden, shrieking and laughing
in a crazed manner. Before I could lay my hands upon her and drag her back to
her bedchamber, she raced off, heading towards the bothy.

‘One of the gardener’s boys said my mother had startled them
by bursting upon them, screaming Ghostie! Ghostie! She said she intended to thump
on all the cottage doors. How I loathed my mother for her idiocy!

‘I went in search of her, to threaten her to keep her peace.
As I was approaching Shivering Falls, I saw your father. In his hands he
clutched my cousins’ kittens. I watched him kneel beside the pool at Shivering
Falls and dunk the creatures beneath the water. After he left, I was about to
take a look when I saw Dung Heap skulking about. He grabbed a stick and dragged
out one of the kittens. He was speaking to it, so I guessed it was still alive.

‘Talia must have gone down the tunnel which leads from the
nursery because I saw her clambering down the rocks. Dung Heap saw her also and
hid behind a bush. She did not see me squatting beside the flooded stream as
she ran past. By then Dung Heap was making off, presumably homeward. I heard
him sniggering about my mother. How dare he? I would not tolerate his amusement
at my mother’s shameful state of mind.

‘It was then that I spotted the other kitten, caught amongst
the roots of a willow which dipped into the stream. I did not want to touch the
repulsive thing. I thought, though, that if I fished it out, Talia would look
upon me with favour.

‘After I had given her the kitten, I would go to Dung Heap and
demand that he hand over the other creature. I hated to think of him bragging
to Talia about how clever he had been in rescuing it; I did not want her to
have any reason to think about that simpleton with kindness.

‘I followed Talia to the ravine. I had not realised that,
although the kitten was alive when I freed it, it was dead when I placed it in
her hands. I tried to comfort Talia, to take her into my arms. She thrust me
off.’

The last of the bindings fell from his face.

Eppie was shocked by the change in him, his hair almost all
fallen away. 

Hands shaking, he tugged out remaining eyelashes and rubbed
them across his lips as though the tingling sensation would bring relief. ‘In
misery, I walked away. I had not gone far when I heard my mother cackling. She
was jealous of my love for your sister and had often told me that she intended
to murder her.

‘I knew this was the moment when, believing she had found
Talia alone, my mother would take her revenge. Before she could attack, I raced
back and hit her with a stone. And I, I who loved Talia so dearly, I who had
come to her rescue, was so furious with her clawing at my arm, urging me to
stop striking my mother, that I span around and thrust her away. I had not
realised we were so close to the cliff edge.’

Eppie shuddered, recalling the time she had chased Twiss to
the ravine and seen her sister’s ghostly body buffeted by the battering waters.

‘Your father kept a theatre of insects which he displayed in
a Cabinet of Curiosities alongside other natural wonders. I often saw Talia
gazing upon the creatures in the cabinet. She was especially fascinated by the
insects. Amongst them I discovered a cicada which had been trapped in a slither
of amber. The cicada is imbued with the mystical quality of life everlasting. I
took the insect and paid a London jeweller to execute intricate ornamentation
work upon Talia’s locket. I considered it highly likely that, although Talia
would be amazed to discover the insect fixed into her locket, she would still
wish to wear it. If my mother carried out her dreadful deed then, by keeping
the cicada close to her heart, Talia’s soul would never rest.’

He was quiet for a moment, recalling the horrific time of
Talia’s death. When he spoke again it was in a despairing voice. ‘She was
barely alive when I drew her from the river. As she lay dying in my arms, I
pleaded with her not to leave me, to haunt me.’

Eppie was moved greatly, both to sympathy and to an
appreciation of Thurstan’s tormented spirit, to learn of the strength of his
love for her sister, a love so intense that it breached the boundaries of life
and death. However, she could not condone what he had done in tricking her
sister. ‘It is a terrible thing to wish eternal existence upon someone you
love. Whilst Talia stays fixed in time, she will see all her loved ones die,
one by one, until, finally, she walks this earth alone.’

‘Don’t you see? By giving Talia a token of everlasting life
I gave her the freedom in death that she never had in life. Always, though, she
has shunned me.’

‘Surely you can understand why?’

Scarred by suffering, he spoke listlessly. ‘I know why. She is
repulsed by my vicious nature. In death, she continues to hate me. But I will
no longer stand for her wilfulness. You must
make
her submit to my
demands!’

‘I can’t make Talia
do
anything!’ Eppie would not
voice her thought that, even if she could make her sister appear just by wishing
this, she would not. She could think of nothing worse than haunting someone as brutal
as her cousin.

‘You have to, before it is too late! I am not thinking about
myself, I am thinking about her. Surely you can see that I am dying? She must
have the chance to rid herself of the cicada, the bond which holds her to her
earthly existence, if she is to have the chance to go to heaven.’

In anguish, he fell to his knees and scrabbled with a clutter
of tools which Dawkin had left beside the dresser: a poleaxe, meat cleaver and turnip
snagger. ‘I caught this snivelling pustule making off with these manorial
church treasures.’

Bemused by the abrupt shift in her cousin’s train of thoughts
and his erratic behaviour, she coaxed, ‘Why don’t you rest? Have something to
eat?’

From an ample pocket of his coat he fetched out a periwig
and placed it upon his head. ‘Never underestimate a sheep, Obadiah.’

The wig looked exactly like Robert du Quesne’s; the one
Talia had blasted into a prickly bush.  

She must have shown something of her wonder in her face.

‘I am not a pleasant sight, I grant you. Daily I crawl out of
a filthy cellar in River View House to scrape a living on the streets. My hogs
are the largest you would ever wish to set eyes upon, with immense hocks and
bellies.’

Eppie vividly recalled the ice market and hearing these same
words uttered by her father to Squire Bulwar. ‘You are ill. Let me help.’

His face creased in loathing. ‘I want no help from you,
swine!’ Almost at the same moment as he uttered these words, he turned his head
sharply towards the door.

Eppie had also caught the sound of Dawkin whistling some
out-of-tune swashbuckling ballad as he sauntered up the garden path. The door
opened and he strode in. Catching sight of Thurstan’s gaunt face topped by du
Quesne’s grimy wig, his smile fell. ‘Eppie?’

Thurstan pushed past him, and ran. 

Dawkin enfolded Eppie and Martha in his arms. ‘Has he hurt you?’

‘We’re fine,’ she replied, shaken.

‘It’s Thurstan du Quesne!’ The shouts of other men quickly
echoed that of the first man. These were followed by the sound of running steps
as farm labourers gave chase.  

Dawkin, too, tore out of the cottage.

Eppie could not stem the flood of hatred towards Thurstan.
However, she felt a sense of sorrow for her cousin. Whatever their differing
life’s circumstances, there existed between them that strange pull of kinship.
How frightening he had seemed in his power, how pitiful he appeared in defeat.
Acutely, she sensed the grave injustices in his life, the traumas that had
tripped him into a state of madness. He was a victim of circumstances, a
misunderstood monster. He at least deserved the dignity of a natural death, not
to dangle at the end of a rope. Moreover, Talia must have the chance to relinquish
the cicada. Hastily, she stepped beneath the porch.

Trying to reach his cart, Thurstan made a desperate bid to
avoid the open arms of men as they made to grab him.

‘Careful!’ Tom shouted. ‘He’s bound to have a knife.’

At these words, several women and children ran to the safety
of their cottages, screaming.

Thurstan’s way was blocked further along the lane as more
labourers emerged from the entrance to a field. He tore back across Miller’s Bridge.

A potato fork in his hands, its prongs pointed forwards,
Jacob courageously advanced like a wasp bent on stinging its victim. Though the
sight of the harmless old man would not scare a sparrow and, moreover, the
prongs were topped with iron bobbles, to protect the potatoes during digging, it
was too much for Thurstan. Emitting a cry of despair, he raced off alongside
the stream.

By now even more men had joined the chase.

‘After the scum!’ Wakelin bawled. ‘Some of you go over the
packhorse bridge and cut him off in the woodland.’

Women and children re-emerged and stood huddled on the lane,
chattering excitedly, their eyes wide with anticipation.

‘Perhaps I could reach Thurstan before the men do,’ Eppie
pondered frantically. ‘I could lead him to a place of sanctuary.’ Hurrying
towards Kizzie, she passed Martha into her arms, and ran.

By the time she reached Shivering Falls, the villagers were
nowhere in sight. Enlivened by never-ending streaks of silver arrows the
cascade, tumbling over the precipice, would have made the woodland sleepy with
its rhythmical pulse were it not for the cries of men cutting through the
undergrowth.

Thurstan’s only chance would be to shake them off, to strike
away from the well-trodden trails. Knowing that was what she must also do, she
ran swiftly, skirting around bushes, kicking through dead bracken and twisting
past trees.

Imagining Thurstan to be sheltering in the scrub, waiting
for an opportunity to hurtle away from the hunters when their backs were
turned, Bill and Edmund were amongst a group of men thwacking the undergrowth
with sticks. Amis Lodge joined the hunt, a gun clutched in his hands.

‘Hey, guess what I’ve found!’ shouted Paxton Winwood. ‘A
slimy wig!’ He held aloft the wig as though it were the guillotined head of a
French aristocrat.

The further Eppie ran, skinning the woodland for any trace
of Thurstan, the darker and colder it became beneath the trees.

There was Wakelin, in the distance, his nose to the ground
like some feverish bloodhound.  

A flurry of startled pigeons stirred from perches, clapping
their wings as they rose into the sky. What had disturbed them? She could see
none of the labourers searching hereabouts, so it was a good guess that
Thurstan had run to the folly to hide.