Elsie leant against the crib. It creaked. ‘You knew Rupert’s parents? Before they died?’
‘I did, madam. I did.’ All at once she looked older and profoundly sad. ‘I worked for them in London. Just a lass I was, then. Saw Master Rupert delivered.’ Her voice grew hoarse. ‘He – he was the first of the babes to be born away from The Bridge. The others died, they said, before the move. That was the reason they relocated to London.’ She looked away. ‘You can imagine how it would be, living in a house where you have lost a child.’
‘The other babies died?’ Elsie looked down at the decaying crib and felt sick. She released the edge and it swayed, empty. God, what a heritage for her baby: a nervous mother and a nursery of death. ‘Mrs Holt, I do not wish to upset you. But—’ She took a hesitant step towards her. ‘You were one of the last people to see my husband alive. No one has told me exactly how he died. He did not write that he was ill. Was he taken, suddenly?’
Mrs Holt withdrew a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Ah, madam. It was a shock to us all. He seemed hale and hearty – perhaps a little preoccupied. I was under the impression he was not sleeping. But he did not seem like to die!’
‘And then . . .?’ She held her breath.
‘Helen found him. Gave a shriek I won’t ever forget. Chilled me to the very bone, it did.’
‘But how? How did he die?’
‘Peacefully madam, don’t you fret. Peacefully. In his bed, tucked up warm.’
‘Not my bed?’
‘No, no. The bedroom just next door. The coroner thought it was his heart. They can give out suddenly, he said. Sometimes a person carries an unsound heart all their life and they never know until – well, they never know.’
So the heart that was so warm and kind had burnt itself out. She sighed. ‘I hope there was not much pain. I saw splinters, near his neck. Do you have any idea how they got there?’
Mrs Holt narrowed her eyes. ‘Splinters? I don’t know, madam. Sometimes those embalmers do strange things. But as to how Helen found him, it didn’t look like there was a struggle. A sudden seizure, maybe. His eyes were open.’ A tear leaked out of her eye and made a tributary of one of her wrinkles. ‘I saw his eyes open, madam, and I closed them for him. God forgive us, what a world this is.’
‘A cruel world to the Bainbridges.’ Elsie thought for a moment. ‘But Mrs Holt, you said you were present when Rupert was born in London. How did you come to be here?’
She patted her eyes and folded the handkerchief, staring down at it. ‘That was the master’s doing.’
‘Rupert’s father?’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated – Elsie thought she was choosing her words with care. ‘He was fond of me. I helped him with the missus. She was in a bad way, the poor love. Never really recovered from the birth. Just before we lost her, she had the strangest notions about this place. Used to rattle on about it with a kind of . . . wild sadness.’
‘What do you mean by strange notions?’
Mrs Holt shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Couldn’t make much sense of it. She used to talk about this nursery and the rocking horse a great deal. All gibberish. But after she went, thoughts of it troubled the master too. That’s why he asked me to come. Said his wife would rest easier, knowing someone was keeping an eye on the house.’ The trace of a smile played at the corners of her bracketed mouth. ‘I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave little Rupert just when he was learning to walk. But the master talked me round, in the end.’
‘How?’
She laughed. ‘Flattery. Flattery and bribery, what else? For a girl so young to be promoted to housekeeper – that’s not an opportunity you turn down. Not if you want to keep your mother in her old age. He was a hard, strange man was Mr Bainbridge, but he said the most curious thing. It’s stayed with me ever since. “That house needs someone young and pure,” he told me. “Someone good. Without bitterness. You must be its angel, Edna.” Silly, isn’t it? But it touched me. I’ve always tried, since that day. Tried to be the angel he thought I was.’
Elsie chewed her lip again. The skin was hot and raw. ‘No. It’s not silly. But why did Rupert not come to live with you after his father died? It would have made sense for him to come here.’
‘I would have liked that.’ Mrs Holt looked fondly at the shape of the rocking horse in its shroud. ‘But family on his mother’s side took him in. Town people. Didn’t have time for jaunts to the country.’
‘But all that time! Weren’t they ever curious to see the house?’
‘Well, they were his mother’s people. They knew about the other poor mites dying here, and how she jabbered on about the place. Didn’t think she would forgive them if they brought her child back.’
It seemed absurd that no one had attempted to claim the house for all this time. No lurking, four-times-removed connection. ‘It is astonishing how unlucky a family can be. Three children and nothing remains.’
Mrs Holt cleared her throat. ‘Except . . .’
Except her own baby. She placed a hand on her stomach. The nausea returned.
‘I have been very neglectful, Mrs Holt. All this talk of Rupert’s family has made me forget my original errand. I came to tell you that Mabel has hurt her leg. She was following me in the garret.’
‘The garret, madam?’
‘Yes. There is another thing I have forgotten. I was supposed to thank you. It was so good of you to write after we spoke. But whoever you got in will have to come back, I’m afraid. The door is quite stuck again.’
Mrs Holt regarded her as if she had sprouted a second head. ‘I don’t understand . . .’
‘The door,’ Elsie repeated. ‘The door to the garret. You had someone come from Torbury to open it and it has got stuck again. I need you to write them another letter.’
‘But – but I can’t. I think there must be some mistake—’
‘For heaven’s sake, why? Why cannot you fetch the person back in?’
Mrs Holt shrank away. ‘Because, madam, I never wrote to Torbury St Jude.’
THE BRIDGE, 1635
A fortuitous day to start my new journal! Josiah is home early and he brings the best of news.
Jane was coaxing the short hair around my forehead into curls when I heard a beat upon the bridge.
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Listen. It is Josiah.’
‘Nay, it can’t be the master yet. He won’t be back until next week.’
‘It is,’ I insisted. ‘I am sure of it.’
She gave me the look that I have grown accustomed to. Her hand twitched by her side, as if she longed to make the old sign against witchcraft. But she did not say a word as I stood and hastened from my bedroom into the summer parlour. Outside, the mist was up. I strained my eyes at the window, certain I could hear it still: the thump of my husband’s heart. Colour fluttered in the mass of cloud. I pressed my forehead to the glass, the better to see. Yes. A tiny rectangle rippling blue and yellow, darting in and out of the fog. Our banner.
The beating sound built and turned into the steady pound of hooves.