A Cornish Orphan, page 20
As he left the gallery, Coraline’s words rang in his mind. ‘It’s like a bereavement.’ And it was. But the money burned in his pocket as he headed for the bank. A new dream flared into life. Maybe – maybe now he could buy himself a little studio, in St Ives.
Chapter 16
The Cellar
There must be another way out of this cellar, Lottie thought, as she edged her way down the stone steps. She wasn’t going to sit in the cellar and cry. She wasn’t going to hammer on the door and beg to be released. She wasn’t going to be afraid. And without fear there was hope.
At first the darkness looked solid and threatening but as her eyes got used to it, Lottie noticed light coming in from somewhere; the dim outline of walls, the odd twinkle of a crystal in the granite, the deep shadow of an alcove, the massive beams of the ceiling rim-lit by a secret infiltration of light.
Lottie paused to listen at the bottom of the steps. Number one sound was the thud-thud of her heartbeat and the huff of her breath. She heard mice, their tiny, scurrying paws creating a vibration, a sense of the life pulse. Lottie wasn’t afraid of mice. Not since Nan had given her a dormouse to hold and she’d felt it quivering. She remembered its petal-like ears, the rapid beat of its heart under her thumb, and the ageless wisdom in the dark jewel of its eye.
Rats were a different matter. They had remarkably human feet which made a noise like bare feet on wet sand. Rats could fill an attic with the thump of their bodies, the squeaks of excitement as they went steeplechasing along water pipes and rafters. A rat was brazen and would look at you with unwavering knowing. A cornered rat would jump at you, at your throat. Lottie shuddered, listening for the heavyweight sound of them, and heard nothing. Nan had taught her a lot about wild creatures. ‘Leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone,’ she’d said.
Standing in the musty twilight, she thought of ways to outsmart Miss Poltair and her cane and her ‘big girls’ who she’d trained to be clones of herself. What did Miss Poltair expect to find when she came to open the cellar door? A snivelling, terrified, apologetic wreck who had learned her lesson. Had Erica once been thrown into the cellar? Had she curled up in a ball and cried with terror, her hot face pressed against the door? And did Miss Poltair stand gleefully listening on the other side? Had Erica given up and conformed?
A pioneer spirit gripped Lottie. She would be the first of Miss Poltair’s victims to disappear, perhaps even escape. The thought fired her courage. She walked on, along a tunnel with an uneven stone floor, feeling disorientated in the dim light, and listening to the drip of water. At the end of the tunnel, a spring trickled from a hole into a carved stone basin, the clear water overflowing into a stone drain below. It felt good to cup her hands and drink the cold, sweet mineral water. She washed her hands and face.
Refreshed, she peered into the wider corridor at the end of the tunnel, going left and right. The light was brighter, more silvery on the granite walls. Muffled footsteps came from above and Lottie realised she had made a discovery. The cellar was vast, and its layout was the same as in the house – a corridor all the way round. Turning right would lead her to the boys’ side of the building! She gave a little skip of joy.
Ahead of her were blinding stripes of sunlight blazing in through an iron grill. A way out? Lottie ran to it, excited. But it was high above her head. Filled with longing, she stared at palaces of cloud drifting over a blue sky, and breathed in the fresh air. It smelled of salt and ferns. How she had missed it, shut away in Treskirby House. She gulped. The cruel beating hadn’t made her cry. But the yearning to be running barefoot along the shining sands was so powerful, like one of her intense headaches. The pain of being homesick rang through every fibre of her body.
The iron grill was impossible for her to reach, and far too heavy for her to lift.
She bobbed back, out of sight, as a crunch of many footsteps sounded above. Her hopes soared. The boys were packing up their gardening. Tools were being clanked and dragged along, and she could hear Mr Gorda’s raucous voice telling them to hurry up, and not leave any tools behind. Lottie’s heart pounded with excitement. Matt! Where was Matt? Would he walk right over the iron grill? How could she attract his attention without getting him into trouble? She jumped with fright when Mr Gorda’s hard footsteps clattered right over the iron grill, sending clods of soil bouncing in to her hiding place. The hobnailed soles of his boots made the iron bars ring like a church bell.
Lottie listened, judging when the heavy footsteps got fainter. If only Matt would come close. She waited, then took a risk and called out. ‘Matt. Matt, it’s Lottie.’ Her voice echoed eerily through the vast cellar.
There was a deathly silence. Then a boy’s gruff voice. ‘It came from down there . . . under the grill.’
His face looked down and it wasn’t Matt. It was a flushed face with frightened eyes. But then . . . all the children in Treskirby House had frightened eyes.
‘I am not a ghost,’ Lottie said clearly, irritated by the shock on his face.
‘A GIRL,’ he shouted. ‘There’s a GIRL down there.’
There was no response. She imagined the boys frozen rigid with fear. Mr Gorda would punish anyone who dared to speak. ‘Can you fetch Matt for me, please? I’m his sister.’
The boy grunted and disappeared. She heard whispers. Then, to her utter joy, Matt’s face looked in at her with eyes so startlingly like Arnie that Lottie wanted to cry. It felt cruel to be so close and not able to touch him.
‘What are you doing down there, Lottie?’ Matt spoke in whispers, his eyes darting nervously to check if he was safe from Mr Gorda. ‘I can’t talk to you or I’ll be beaten.’
‘Is Tom all right?’
‘Yes. He doesn’t like it here, but he’s all right.’ Matt gave her a soulful stare. Lottie reached up to him and he reached down, lying on his tummy, but their hands were too far away to touch. The space between their reaching hands seemed alive, charged by an invisible, shimmering wire of energy. All they had was eye contact, intensified by the memory of home.
‘We’ve got to escape,’ Lottie whispered, ‘and it has to be all three of us together. We must find the way home. To Nan. She’ll take care of us.’
‘I want to see Mum,’ Matt said, sadly, and a big tear drop fell through the grill. ‘Do you think she’s dead, Lottie?’
Lottie stared up at him. Matt had never looked vulnerable and lost as he did now. Had Mr Gorda’s cruel regime broken Matt’s rebellious spirit?
‘Of course she’s not dead, Matt,’ Lottie said confidently. ‘She’s got polio and people do get better from it, but it takes a long, long time. She’ll be missing us. When we escape we can go to the hospital and see her.’
Her bright words settled into Matt’s consciousness. A flicker of light passed through his eyes.
‘We’ve got to make a plan, Matt,’ Lottie said, ‘so we can escape at the first opportunity. We’ll only get one chance. If they find out what we’re doing they’ll keep us prisoner. So don’t tell anyone, and I won’t. But every time you’re in the garden, check this grill – I’ll find a way to leave you a note.’
Matt nodded. He seemed edgy. ‘I’ve got to go, Lottie. If the Gorgon sees me, I’ll get a beating.’ He started to get up, then lay down again, his face close to the bars. ‘The Gorgon has a day off, on a Tuesday. We could do it then – you listen out – and Lottie – this is important. Make them trust you. Then they won’t suspect us.’
Lottie nodded. She heard a shout in the distance. ‘Matthew Lanroska! What do you think you’re doing, boy? Inside – NOW.’
Matt rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve gotta go.’
‘Give my love to Tom.’
‘I shan’t tell him. He can’t keep a secret.’ Matt scrambled up and she saw his wiry shape against the blue and white sky. A clump of Alexanders hung over the grill, and Matt quickly snapped off one of the creamy umbels of blossom and threw it down to her.
‘Thanks!’ Lottie picked it up, moved to think Matt had remembered how she loved to breathe its sweet, exotic perfume. Then he was gone, his footsteps light and swift, fading into the distance, leaving only the cheeping of sparrows and the pattering of sycamore leaves in the wind.
Matt’s words lodged in her mind. ‘Make them trust you.’ He was right. It meant she had to find her way back to the cellar door and sit there, curled up in a ball of misery. Then apologise and pretend she had learned her lesson.
After staring up into the sunlight, Lottie’s eyes took a while to adjust. Walking back into the darkness was difficult. What if Miss Poltair opened the cellar door and found she wasn’t there? Would she just lock it and walk away? Would she leave her there all night without food or comfort?
Seeing Matt had been encouraging, but it had stirred up a whirlpool of emotions. Lottie felt drained. She didn’t think she could take much more.
Nan turned herself round and clambered backwards down from the train which stood steaming at Truro Station. She reached in and slid her forked walking stick out from under the carriage seat. She stood for a moment, recovering from the effort, and fished in her canvas haversack for her cardboard rail ticket.
‘Would you kindly direct me to Lemon Street?’ she asked the ticket collector, her ringing voice and stature turning a few heads in the station foyer. She wore a different dress for once: her fruity dress in bottle-green cotton with a motif of peaches, pears and grapes. It had huge shoulder pads which made her look even more imperious. Instead of her usual battered old straw hat, Nan had a remarkably clean panama. Her ankles were already swelling, bulging over the unfamiliar black court shoes.
She hadn’t been to Truro for years, but on the walk to Lemon Street, she soon remembered it. She was shocked at the number of motorcars on the streets, and the appalling smell of them. Even so, she looked at each one with keen interest, especially after her long walk to St Ives Station, a difficult train journey, and now another long walk.
Sitting in the waiting room at the solicitor’s office in Lemon Street, Nan took a swig from the glass bottle of elderflower cordial she had brought with her. Then, more discreetly, a swig of cherry brandy. She sailed into Bart Pascoe’s office smelling like a Christmas cake.
‘So what brings you to Truro, Mrs Lanroska?’
Nan paused to arrange herself on the hard leather chair, pulling the green dress over her wide-apart knees like a tent. She’d put on so much weight. And Bart Pascoe had aged; a ruff of grey hair circled his sunburnt bald scalp. His serious, attentive eyes were what Nan remembered, set in a long, narrow, Cornish face.
‘I have lost my great-grandchildren,’ she announced.
‘Dear me. Lost – in what way?’
‘The INFERNAL, INTERFERING authorities took them away, so I’m told – and I was the last to be told.’
‘Dearie me.’
‘Kindly don’t interrupt.’ Nan took a deep breath. ‘I need to tell you everything, so pay attention, will you please, and make some notes. I have been wronged, grossly insulted and wickedly deceived. I love these three children, I’m perfectly capable and willing to take care of them in my lovely home.’ Tears poured down Nan’s wrinkled cheeks. ‘And . . . I will go to the ends of the earth to find them.’
The fragrance of the bluebell woods drifted over Cornwall, and the sky beyond the hospital window was the colour of bluebells. The air shimmered with heat and pollen and the wings of bees. Jenny’s only comfort as she lay in bed was to imagine herself out there. But so often, her imaginings turned into an unbearable yearning, and when it did, she begged for sedatives and sleep.
Today she had burst into tears when the nurse told her it was the eighth of May. Flora Day. Lottie’s birthday. And the second anniversary of Arnie’s death. Nurse Jenkins, affectionately known as ‘Good old Jenksie’, had taken time to befriend Jenny through the long months of her illness. It was a blessed gift of friendship. ‘I know your children so well now,’ Jenksie often said. ‘You’ve described them so vividly – so many times. I think I’d recognise them, Jen, and one day they’re going to turn up here, you wait and see.’
No matter how busy she was, Jenksie spent time listening to Jenny’s outpouring of grief and frustration. ‘Why the tears?’ she asked. ‘Is the eighth of May a special day for you?’
‘It’s Flora Day. And I’ll never dance again. Will I?’
‘Never say never. You’re a fighter, Jen. Look how far you’ve come! You’ve done miles better than the doctors expected.’
‘And it’s Lottie’s birthday. Little Lottie. She’s twelve, and I won’t be there to wish her a happy birthday and give her a present. Why have my children been taken from me, Jenksie? Why, why, why?’
‘You’ll get them back. I’m sure you will.’ Jenksie broke the rules and sat on the bed to give Jenny a cuddle. Matron walked past and deliberately looked the other way. Jenksie went on talking, soothingly, trying to bring glimmers of hope into Jenny’s life. ‘You’ve got something to look forward to this afternoon.’
‘What’s that?’ Jenny looked up at her in surprise.
‘Your leg iron. It’s been made for you and they’re bringing it in for a fitting. You might even take those first precious steps.’ Jenksie’s eyes shone as if she was giving a child an ice cream. She wagged a finger. ‘And I shall be there, cheering you on.’
Jenny bit back a sarcastic reply. She pictured herself struggling around St Ives with her leg in an iron. ‘Right.’ She forced a smile. Her eyes turned again to the window. ‘I need to sleep.’ She felt her eyelids closing, and the sky beyond the window melted into a dream. Throughout her illness, sleep had become a refuge and a place of healing. It had an entrance gate of heavenly blue, and it had a password: ‘My children’. Jenny pictured them on the sand, Lottie between the two boys, mothering them. She dreamed of waking up and finding them standing by her bed, their eyes solemn, their fingers clutching tiny posies.
In the three months Jenny had been in hospital, she’d had few visitors. The difficulty of transport, lack of money, and pressure of work made it impossible for ordinary folk in St Ives to go on a trip to Truro. The hospital had a strict regime and ‘Visiting Hour’ was 3:00 to 4:00 and 7:00 to 8:00, beginning and ending with the ringing of a loud hand bell. Jenny learned not to expect anyone, and allowed herself to sleep through that hour of loneliness.
Having the leg iron fitted was stressful, despite the cheerful efforts of the physiotherapists and Jenksie. Feeling had returned to Jenny’s left leg and she’d been rigorously doing exercises, building strength for the time when walking would actually be possible. Her arms had always been strong from the washing, bread-making and scrubbing she’d done in the Downlong Cottage, but the early weeks of having polio left her weak all over, plus the effect of two years’ malnutrition, the many times Jenny had gone without so that the children could eat. Her once thick glossy hair was scraggy and limp, her cheeks hollow, her skin pale. She felt very, very vulnerable when she sat in a chair looking at her withered right leg with its limp and twisted foot. The leg iron looked huge and ugly, like a piece of farm machinery. It was horribly shiny, cold and creaky, with stout leather straps and ferocious buckles.
‘It’s a good job I can’t feel it,’ she joked, trying to match the relentless cheerfulness of Jenksie and the team. When they stood her up, Jenny was terrified and giddy, and the leg iron felt cumbersome and heavy. She smiled bravely. ‘I feel lopsided – as if I’ve been on the gin.’ The giddiness passed and she was able to stand for a precarious few seconds, amid torrents of loud encouragement. She took her first steps between two parallel bars.
‘Come on, Jen. Come on, Jen. You can do it.’
‘Good girl. One more – well done. And another.’
‘Well done! Six steps.’
‘I’m shaking like a jelly,’ Jen said.
‘But you DID IT.’
She looked at the smiles and the glow of kindness in their faces, and felt a mixture of embarrassment and joy.
‘You’re on the way now, Jen,’ said Jenksie as she helped her sit back in the wheelchair. ‘On the way home, girl.’
A picture of her beloved Downlong cottage flashed into Jenny’s mind. But I don’t have a home now, she thought, while her face nodded and smiled. The almoner had gently explained to her, one dark afternoon, that the cottage had been seized and was up for auction to pay for her medical treatment. ‘You must try hard to accept it, dear,’ the almoner advised. ‘A place will be found for you, probably in a nice home for . . .’ she lowered her voice, ‘ . . . for the disabled.’
‘But – my children . . .’ Jenny had cried and worried for days, and given up doing her exercises. Then the cry of a seagull passing over the hospital made her think of Lottie. How brave and composed she’d been after the shipwreck. How she’d settled down, bossed the boys about, and made a life for herself. Courage, like the rising sun, came blazing back into Jenny. She would fight to get better – for her children.
‘It’s Visiting Hour now, Jen,’ Jenksie said as she wheeled Jenny back to the ward after her first go at walking. ‘I expect you want to sleep, don’t you? Shall I draw the curtains round?’
‘No – I don’t feel sleepy. I feel excited – as if something is going to happen. I think I’ll just sit up for a while and watch people coming in,’ Jenny said. ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Lottie and Matt and Tom came through that door? Maybe I’ll brush my hair, Jenksie. Can you find my brush?’
Jenny lay back against the stack of white pillows, the hairbrush in her hand. She found herself watching the door. Hoping.
The bell rang down in the corridor. The doors were flung open, and a bunch of flowers came in. A buzz of interest rippled around the ward. No one had ever, ever seen such an enormous bunch of freshly picked, bright flowers. There were scarlet and yellow tulips, Madonna lilies, blousy peonies, clouds of moon daisies and woodland ferns arranged in an extravagant spray like a peacock’s tail.
A ringing voice came from behind the bunch of flowers.
