IX
It is raining and they have come inside. Not a light shower but the beginning of a storm. I have been watching it build out there all afternoon, beyond the head of the river, over the distant mountains. There have been many storms in my time at Birchwood Manor. I have become used to the changed, charged atmosphere as air is drawn towards the front.
But this storm feels different.
It feels like something is going to happen.
I am restless and infused with anticipation. My thoughts skip from here to there, picking through the stream of recent conversation, turning over this stone and then that one.
I have been thinking about Lucy, who suffered so terribly after Edward’s death. It gladdens me to learn that she told Leonard at last that I was not a faithless lover; I care little for the opinions of those I did not know, but Leonard mattered to me and I am relieved he knew the truth.
I have been thinking of Pale Joe, too. For so long, I craved to know what became of him – how pleased I am, how proud, to hear of what he achieved; that he took his kindness and influence, and his steely sense of justice, and put them to work. But, oh, how cruel it is to have fallen from his life when I did!
And I have been thinking of Edward, as always, and that stormy night spent here, in this house, so many years ago.
I miss Edward most on stormy nights.
It was his idea that we should come here for the summer, to his house, his beloved twin-gabled house on the river, before travelling on to America. He told me his plan on the evening of his twenty-second birthday, as candlelight danced across the night-darkened walls of his studio.
‘I have something for you,’ he said, to which I laughed, because it was his birthday and not mine. ‘Yours is next month,’ he said, waving away my half-hearted protest, ‘that’s near enough. Besides, we do not need reasons to surprise one another, you and I.’
I insisted nonetheless that I should be allowed to give him my gift first, and held my breath as he began to unwrap the brown paper.
For a decade I had been doing just as Lily Millington advised: keeping a small portion of my spoils each week in a hidden place. At first, I did not know what I was saving for, only that Lily had told me to do it, and in truth it did not matter, for there is a security to be gained from saving that transcends purpose. As I got older, though, and my father’s letters continued to counsel patience, I made myself a promise: if he did not send for me by my eighteenth birthday, I would buy myself a ticket to America and travel there alone to find him.
I would be eighteen in June 1862 and had saved almost enough for a single ticket; but since I’d met Edward, my thoughts for the future had shifted. When I saw Pale Joe in April, I asked him where one should go to procure a leather gift of the highest quality, and he sent me to his father’s supplier, Mr Simms on Bond Street. It was there, in that shop, which smelled of spice and mystery, that I placed my order.
Edward’s face when he unwrapped the satchel was worth every ill-gotten, squirrelled-away, secret penny. He ran his fingertips over the leather, taking in the fine stitching, the embossed initials, and then he opened it and slipped his sketchbook inside. It fitted, as I had hoped it would, like a hand into a glove. Immediately, he put the strap over his shoulder, and from that day until the last, I did not see him without the satchel that Mr Simms had made to my instructions.
He moved closer then to where I was standing by the bench of art supplies, his proximity causing my breath to catch, and from the pocket of his coat he took an envelope. ‘And now,’ he said softly, ‘the first half of my gift to you.’
How well he knew me, how well he loved me, for within the envelope lay two tickets on a ship making the Atlantic crossing in August.
‘But, Edward,’ I said, ‘the cost—’
He shook his head. ‘Sleeping Beauty was beloved. The exhibition was a great success, and it is all down to you.’
‘I did little!’
‘No,’ he said, suddenly serious, ‘I could not paint without you now. I won’t.’
The tickets were made out in the name of Mr and Mrs Radcliffe. ‘You will never have to,’ I promised.
‘And when we’re in America, we will find your father.’
My mind was racing, planning ahead, picking a pattern through the bright new possibilities, considering the best way to extricate myself from Mrs Mack and the Captain, to avoid letting Martin know until the last, when it came to an abrupt stop. ‘But, Edward,’ I said, ‘what about Fanny?’
A slight frown line appeared between his eyes. ‘I will let her down gently. She will be all right. She is young, and pretty, and wealthy; she will have other suitors begging for the chance to marry her. She will understand in time. It is another good reason for us to go to America: the kindest thing for Fanny. It will allow distance for the dust to settle, for her to spin whatever story she prefers.’
Edward never said a word that he did not believe with all his heart, and of this, too, I know he was convinced. He took my hand in his and kissed it, and when he smiled at me, such was his power of persuasion, I believed that what he said was true.
‘And now,’ he said, his smile widening as he took from the bench a large parcel, ‘the second half of your gift.’
With his free hand, he led me to the cushions on the floor and placed the present – surprisingly heavy – upon my lap. He watched keenly, almost jittery with anticipation, as I started to unwrap it.
When I reached the last layer of paper, there, within the shroud, was the most beautiful wall clock that I had ever seen. The box casing and face were both made of finely crafted wood, with Roman numerals inlaid in gold, and delicate hands with tapered arrows.
I brushed the palm of my hand across the smooth surface, the lustre cast by a nearby candle picking out the grain of the wood. I was overwhelmed by the gift. Living with Mrs Mack, I had not acquired a single possession of my own, let alone an object of such beauty. But the clock was precious beyond its material value. Its bestowal was Edward’s way of demonstrating that he knew me, that he understood who I really was.
‘Do you like it?’ he said.
‘I love it.’
‘And I love you.’ He kissed me, but as he withdrew his brows shifted. ‘What is it? You look as if you’ve just been handed trouble.’
And that is precisely how I felt. Almost as soon as I had received the clock, my thrill was replaced by a great covetous need to protect the precious gift; there was no way I could take it near the Seven Dials without Mrs Mack putting a price upon it. ‘I think that I should hang it here,’ I said.
‘I have another idea. In fact, there is something important that I must talk to you about.’
Edward had mentioned the house by the river before, and I had observed the way his expression changed, a look of longing coming upon his face, which would have made me envious had we been speaking of another woman. But as he told me now of his need that I should see his house, there was something else underlying his features: a vulnerability that made me want to take him in my arms and soothe whatever distant trial such talk evoked. ‘I have an idea for my next painting,’ he said at last.
‘Tell me.’
And that is when he relayed to me what had happened to him when he was fourteen years old: the night in the woods, the light in the window, his certainty that he had been saved by the house. When I asked him how a house could save a boy, he told me the ancient folk tale of the Eldritch Children that he had learned from his grandfather’s gardener, about the queen of the fairies, who left the land on the bend of the river blessed and any house that stood upon it lit.