May grinned and skipped over to where the boat was moored against a simple wooden jetty, stepping down to sit on the bench in the middle of the boat.
Ada looked longingly at the bag of sweets, the two smiling girls, the glittery flecks of sunlight on the river’s surface; she heard Shashi telling her not to be frightened, that many people lived half-lives due to fear …
‘Come on!’ called May. ‘We’ll lose our turn.’
So Ada decided to go with them. She hurried to the end of the jetty and let May help her down onto the bench at the very back. ‘What do I do?’
‘You don’t need to do anything but sit,’ said Charlotte, untying the rope. ‘Let us do the rest.’
Ada was glad. Frankly, she was too busy holding on for dear life to do much of anything else. She was keenly aware of the boat’s subtle rocking motion as the older girl took the oar and pushed them away from the jetty’s end. She gripped the sides tightly, her knuckles white.
And then they were floating. And it was almost lovely. She didn’t feel seasick at all.
‘Of course not,’ said Charlotte, laughing, when Ada said so, ‘this is hardly the sea.’
The older girl rowed and they travelled slowly upstream; a mother duck trailed by nine ducklings floated towards them from the other direction. Birds sang in the willows that lined the water; a horse in a field whinnied. The other girls became smaller and smaller specks in the distance. At last the boat rounded a bend and they were alone.
The Gypsy camp was only a little further on. Ada wondered whether they were going to go that far upstream. Perhaps they would even go as far as St John’s Lock.
But as they were nearing the edge of the copse of trees, Charlotte stopped rowing. ‘That’s enough of that. My arms are tired.’ She held out the paper bag. ‘Sweet?’
May took a barley sugar and then passed the bag to Ada, who chose a black-and-white mint humbug.
The river’s current was not strong and rather than begin its drift back downstream, the boat sat happily where it was. Although they were no longer in view of the picnic site, across the fields Ada could see the twin gables at the back of the schoolhouse. She thought of Miss Radcliffe’s description of Birchwood Manor as ‘a vision’ and realised warmly that some of her teacher’s affection for the house was starting to rub off on her.
‘It’s a shame we got off to such a bad start,’ said Charlotte, breaking the silence. ‘All I ever wanted was to help you, Ada. I know how difficult it is to be the new girl.’
Ada, sucking on her humbug, nodded.
‘But you never listen, and you never seem to learn.’
Although Charlotte was still smiling, Ada experienced a sudden, unpleasant jolt of foreboding. At the other end of the boat, the older girl reached to slide something out from beneath her bench seat.
It was the découpage box sent from India.
As Ada stiffened, Charlotte removed the lid and reached inside, pulling out the little bundle of fur. ‘He is rather sweet, I’ll admit. But pets are not allowed at Miss Radcliffe’s school, Ada.’
Ada stood up at her end of the boat, starting it rocking from side to side. ‘Give him to me.’
‘You’re going to get yourself in a lot of trouble if you don’t let me help you.’
‘Give him to me.’
‘What do you think Miss Thornfield will say when I tell her?’
‘Give him to me!’
‘I don’t think she understands,’ May Hawkins piped up.
‘No,’ agreed Charlotte, ‘such a shame. I’m going to have to teach her.’ She slid to the side of her seat and flung her arm out wide so that Bilī was almost touching the water. He was the merest scrap in her hand, cycling his hind legs fearfully as he sought to gain purchase, desperately trying to climb to safety. ‘I told you, Ada. Rule number one: I always win.’
Ada took another step and the boat rocked harder. She had to save him.
She almost lost her balance but she didn’t sit down. She needed to be brave.
May was holding on to her legs now, trying to stop her from getting past.
‘Time to say goodbye,’ said Charlotte.
‘No!’ Ada kicked free of May’s hold and lunged towards the other girl.
The boat was rocking violently now and Ada fell heavily to the planked wooden floor.
Charlotte was still holding Bilī out over the water and Ada scrambled to her feet. She lunged again, and again she fell. This time, though, she didn’t hit the planks.
The water was so much colder than she had imagined, so much harder. She was gasping for breath, her hands flapping and her mouth opening, her vision blurring wetly.
She couldn’t stay at the surface. She couldn’t cry for help. She began to panic.
Down, down, down she went, limbs flailing, mouth filling with water, lungs beginning to burn.
Everything was different under here. The world sounded different. And it was getting darker. The sun was a tiny silvery disc beyond the surface, but Ada was falling further away, like a girl in space, surrounded by stars that slipped between her fingers when she reached for them.
Through the silty water, amongst the furry reeds, she saw Shashi on the terrace, smiling her wide, white smile, and Mamma at the desk in the library, and Papa in his study with the spinning globe. Tick, tick, tick, it went when it was spun, tick, tick, tick …
She was going to have a chakkali when they reached the market.
But where was Shashi? She was gone. Candles flickering …
Ada was lost.
But she was not alone. There was someone in the water with her, she was sure of it. She couldn’t see who it was, but she knew that someone was there. A shadow … a sense …
The last thing Ada felt was her body hitting the bottom of the river, her arms and legs impacting against the gentle rocks and slippery weeds as her lungs grew larger than her torso, pushing their way into her throat and filling her head.
And then the strangest thing: as her brain was burning, she saw something ahead of her, a bright blue shining light, a jewel, a moon, and she knew, somehow, that if she just reached out and grabbed it, the bright blue light would show her the way.
VI
Something very interesting has happened. This afternoon we had another visitor.
Jack spent the morning in the malt house poring over a stack of papers that he brought in with him when he got home last night. I glanced over them when he went to put a pie in the oven for lunch and gleaned that they replicate the contents of the email sent yesterday by Rosalind Wheeler. For the most part they are text, but one appears to be a map. A floor plan, more properly, hand-drawn and corresponding largely to the layout of the house, presumably produced by the mysterious Mrs Wheeler. I suspect that in combination with the written notes, it is designed to lead Jack to the Radcliffe Blue.
He came back into the house just before midday and we passed a contented hour as he tried to make sense of the plan, staring at it and then measuring out footsteps along the lengths of each room, stopping every so often to make a small adjustment with his pen.
It was around one when the knock came at the door. He was surprised but I was not, for I had noticed the slight, elegant woman earlier, standing on the edge of the lane that runs alongside the front wall. She had been staring up at the house, arms folded across her middle, and there was something in her bearing that made me wonder whether I had met her before. I hadn’t; I knew that when she came closer: I never forget a face. (I never forget anything. Not any more.)