A Crooked Rib (8 page)

Mama’s smile reassured me.

‘But now,’ I went on, ‘she seems only a little squashed …’

‘I meant to ask whether she resembled Papa or me. Or you.’

‘Not me,’ I said hastily. ‘At least, I—’

‘I think she has a likeness to Papa, but we’ll have to see. Now, as to her name … Nothing Frenchie, I think. A pretty English name. What do you say?’

The warmth of my sister’s body began to seep into me; a tiny pulse beat in her temple. I stroked the fine down that covered her head. ‘She’s very small.’

‘She will grow.’

‘We might call her Harriet.’

‘What other names do you favour?’

‘Louisa is pretty.’

‘Very pretty,’ said Mama, ‘and it suits her well. Shall we call her Louisa Ann, after Lady Spencer who has been so kind?’

‘I like those names very much,’ I said.

‘Then it’s settled. I shall write and tell Papa.’

‘Please to tell Papa,’ I said, ‘that Louisa is a very
comfortable
baby, and that I promise to take care of her as he charged me to do with you, dearest Mama.’

For several days, all was well, so I was surprised on returning from school to find Dr Judd conferring with Martha in the kitchen.

‘What has happened?’ I asked, in panic.

‘There is nothing at all to worry about,’ said the doctor. ‘Mama has developed a slight fever and I have come to see her only as a precaution.’

I ran upstairs to where Mama lay against her pillows. She beckoned me to her and I kissed her cheek.

‘Are you ill, Mama?’

‘Just a little tired.’ Her voice was faint and I strained to hear her words. ‘Now, Fanny, my own sweet girl, I have a very foolish whim. I shan’t be easy in my mind until Baby Louisa is baptised, so Parson Hodges has agreed to perform the ceremony here this evening.’

I stared at her, then at my sister who lay pallid and almost motionless beside her.

Mama opened her half-closed eyelids and smiled at me. Her hand lifted, as if to pat my cheek, but fell back against the counterpane. ‘Go downstairs now to Ellen, Fanny dear.’

I do not know what impulse woke me so early at dawn next day. No sound came from anywhere in the house, but I rose and, as if by instinct, went straight to Mama’s room and opened the shutters. In the soft, pale light, I saw she lay as ashen as my sister. I bent towards her, expecting to be enveloped in her sweet, familiar scent, but recoiled from the repulsive smell of the fish market that seemed suddenly to engulf me. Panicked, I saw that beads of feverish sweat had formed on her forehead and, in an effort to cool her, I turned back her covers.

The lower part of her nightgown was stained purplish-red. As I watched, crimson trickles oozed down her lower legs and across her feet, seeping into the bedding beneath her. For a moment I stood aghast, then, stumbling into the corridor, I began to scream.

‘Martha! Ellen!
Come at once
. Mama is lying in a bed of blood.’

Of the funeral I remember almost nothing. I recall that from somewhere were conjured for me a black mourning frock, petticoats
and bonnet; that I stood, numb, by William’s grave, staring at the bottomless space beside it as it received the coffin in which lay Mama with Baby Louisa in her arms. I know that it rained, for I remember thinking that I should never again, in all my life, see the sun shine. And, through it all, I was engulfed by the constant sad toll of the funeral bell.

I recall only snatches of the time following but, even now, I can bring to mind that bitter afternoon when I climbed the small incline in St Michael’s churchyard and, surrounded by tombstones, sat on William’s grave beside the grassless rectangle where Mama and Louisa lay. I gazed up at the weathercock on the church tower, and I recollect still how the grey sky above it was reflected in the water of Lyme Bay below.

It was Ellen who told me I was to live with ‘they grand family at they Cobb’.

‘Them be off to Australia and them is to take ye wi’ they. They master have agreed.’

I stared at her, uncomprehending.

‘Ye is to stay here till they Christmas Eve. Then ye is to go to they Spencers and all ye on to Charmouth and after, I knows nay where. But, come they April or May, ye and they leaves for Australia.’

I felt the wetness of tears on my cheeks.

‘Ye must nay cry now. They Spencers be very good folk. And it be sure ye will come back some day.’

My tree stood skeleton-stark in the garden. Agnes had left us for another situation, Joseph was about the business of the house, and Martha and Ellen were packing my trunks. Very soon, Lady Spencer would come in the carriage to fetch me. I crept into the garden and stood, frozen with misery and cold, gazing at it in farewell. Then, seized by a sudden frenzy, I rushed to my mulberry tree, tore from it twigs and branches, and, with bloodied fingers, ripped and twisted at Mama’s holly bush. Weeping, I fled out of the gate into Church Street. My boots rang out on the frosty cobbles, hammers on a
blacksmith’s anvil; white trails of my breath pursued me as I ran. And in St Michael’s churchyard, swept by bleak winter winds, I heaped the drab grey tombstone and the scarred earth beside it with my magic twigs and red and green holly boughs, a Christmas offering to Mama and William and Baby Louisa for whom now all seasons were as one.

The cracks in our cabin walls became portals through which our ship released a nocturnal army. At the onset of darkness, drawn by the sour reek of vomit, waving their feelers, clacking their varnished wings, hundreds of cockroaches crawled out to plague us. In vain did we stuff every aperture with paper, stop any gaps with strips of cloth, even wedge buttons sideways into the larger openings. Still they squeezed out from the tiniest crevices. And if we crushed them, a horrible stench rose from the carcasses and thousands of tiny eggs were released to hatch into yet more tormentors.

The
Buffalo
rose up on giant swells and slammed down their breaking sides, struggling against the sea’s attempts to swamp and claim us. When I opened my eyes, I saw Lucy in the opposite bunk, Mary Ann and Gussie in their berths above. Perhaps I was dreaming? But when I closed my eyes, then opened them again, the Spencer girls were still there with me.

I could not collect my thoughts. Disoriented by the endless pitching of the sea, I fancied I had died and gone to Hell.

‘Mama,’ I heard someone call.

‘Hush, Fanny,’ said a soothing voice.

‘Mama!’ I cried, raising my head.

A damp cloth wiped the tears from my face. I caught the pleasant drift of lavender but, aching for the sweet familiar smell of my own mama, I burst out into gasping sobs. ‘Please, Ma’am, I want to go home. To Lyme.’

For three weeks now we had been at sea, and still Gussie and I were struggling against sea-sickness.

‘Fanny,’ said Lucy, sitting on my berth, ‘Mama wishes to see you.’

I staggered behind her to Lady Spencer’s cabin.

‘Now, my dear,’ she said, ‘I have something to say to you. Sir Richard and I have grown very fond of you and, as you’ve become part of our family, we should like you to call us Uncle and Aunt.’

‘If she’s one of the family, why shouldn’t she call you Mama and Papa?’

‘Because, Lucy, she has a papa of her own. What do you think of that idea, Fanny?’

‘I … It’s very kind, Ma’am.’

She patted my hand. ‘It’s very kind … Aunt.’

Tears started in my eyes and I fought to keep them back.

‘My papa … Perhaps he thinks I am dead, too.’

‘My dear child, he thinks no such thing. Sir Richard has written to him. As soon as his ship docks at Portsmouth, your papa will seek a ship bound for Western Australia and join us at Albany.’

‘Are you certain … Aunt?’

‘As I sit here. Your papa will come to you.’

‘And take me back to Lyme?’

‘We will decide all that when he comes.’

Like Noah’s Ark, our ship floated alone on a vast empty ocean stretching endlessly to the horizon. Having found our sea-legs, Lucy and I roamed unchecked about the ship, taking care to avoid the hatches at the stern, from which rose the stench and shrieks of the transport women manacled in the hold.

‘Let’s go to the mid-decks,’ said Lucy.

‘But we’re forbidden to—’

‘Pouf. Who’s to know where we are?’

As we slipped down the stairway, a pungent land odour wafted from below and a vision of Ellen rose unexpectedly before me.

‘Why, it smells … exactly like the stables at the George Inn.’

As we descended further, we heard clucking and odd scraping noises.

‘Hens!’ I cried. ‘And look …’

There, in pens and crates, were two sheepdogs, a quantity of fowls, a number of goats and ewes, and a ram that glowered wickedly from a separate cage.

‘Those are
our
animals,’ said Lucy. ‘And that’s Papa’s stallion, Thunder. But how thin and wretched he is. We must find Hugh at once.’

Hugh, Lucy’s eldest brother, was taken aback by our indignation.

‘Why are the animals confined so?’ demanded Lucy. ‘It’s most terribly cruel.’

‘How could we allow them to stray about the ship?’ said Hugh. ‘They’d be overboard in a moment. And there’s nothing cruel about it at all. The sheep and goats and fowls are quite content in their quarters, the cows are led about the decks on halters twice a week and the dogs are walked by the crew every morning.’

‘And Thunder?’

‘Yes, it is hard for him. He’s taken three or four times a week to walk in a halter, but he’s in such terror of his surroundings we can scarcely persuade him to move at all. We have hopes of exercising him in Rio.’

Rio holds no charms for me. I remember the strangeness of the looming, oddly shaped mountains and the dark green forests as we approached, the gradual discerning of the people clustering at the quayside. We left the
Buffalo
and were lodged for five days with the Resident, Mr Tully, in an imposing house with white columns, but the ship remained with us. As we lay in our beds, or walked about the large garden, suddenly the ground would seem to heave beneath us like a great wave.

‘Only five days on land,’ said Lucy. ‘I would rather stay here forever than have to return to that smelly ship.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Uncle. ‘Shipboard life is capital. Now, my good girls, this is our second day here and you are quite rested, so I propose to take you the three of you on an excursion into Rio town. It will be a chance to test my command of the Portuguese language.’

‘I didn’t know you spoke the native language, Papa.’

‘Yes, indeed, Augusta. I have put ashore here many times when I was captaining my ship. And I first came to Rio as a midshipman.’

Lucy laughed. ‘I can’t imagine my dear papa as a middy.’

Uncle Spencer ruffled her hair. ‘Come along now. Fetch your bonnets and we shall be off.’

So, while Aunt rested in the shade, gossiping with Mrs Tully, and the younger boys played among the brightly coloured flowers, we four set off together. The flamboyance of the vegetation, the heat and the proliferation of dark-skinned people chattering in a language I could not understand made our surroundings feel like a mirage. Strangely garbed men passed in mule-trains, women balanced baskets of unknown fruits on their heads, ragged children grubbed in the dust.

A woman in a tattered purple gown darted towards us, her skin and hair soot-black. ‘Fortuna, fortuna,’ she cried, clutching at Gussie’s hand.

Uncle snapped something at her, and she spat on the ground and flounced off. ‘She’s harmless enough,’ he said. ‘A rogue, certainly, but I doubt she’s a thief.’

‘What did she want, Papa?’

‘Money, of course, Liza-Lou. For telling your fortunes. It’s a speciality of the natives in this part of the world. They claim to have the second sight.’

Lucy seized her father’s arm. ‘Oh, Papa, please, please. I long to have my fortune told.’

‘It’s nothing but stuff and nonsense.
You will be rich, you will marry a handsome man, have a fine horse and carriage
… All that babble, that’s what they will tell you. And for that, you must part with a silver coin.’

‘But, Papa, dearest Papa, I wish so much to hear my fortune.’

I knew that, of all his children, it was Lucy who could coax Uncle from the angry rages which sometimes overtook him, often for no more reason than a fly’s alighting on his arm. These were provoked, so Gussie had told me, by the livid flattened scar on his forehead which, from time to time, pressed upon the humours of his temperament. It was always Lucy whom Aunt sent with cooling cloths and brandy to bring him to himself again. Wheedling and teasing, she could calm him in minutes.

There, in Rio, he looked at her pleading face and shook his head, but Gussie and I knew she would have her way. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘if you’re so set upon it, Liza-Lou, I suppose I must accede.’ He paused. ‘But … we won’t take the services of one of these street peddlers.’ And he led us off into a side alley, from thence into another, and on through a maze of narrow passageways until we came to a low dwelling set apart from a huddle of poor huts. Made of mud, with open holes for doors and windows, it could scarcely claim to be a house, though a few red- and yellow-flowered bushes sprouted in the dusty yard before it.

‘Wait for me,’ said Uncle, leaving us by the broken fence. He stepped into the yard, stood by the entrance and called out in a foreign tongue.

A young girl appeared, black-eyed, dark-haired, her worn frock filthy, her feet bare. ‘
O que você quer
?’

He spoke to her. She shrugged and vanished. It was very hot by now and the dust had made me thirsty; I could feel the sun beating on my head through my bonnet. The girl reappeared and beckoned us into the hovel.

It took several minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. We walked on earth floors into an empty room and from thence into another in which I gradually distinguished two chairs and several rough boxes set as seats. On the walls hung masks carved like grotesques in a carnival. From further inside the dwelling, the girl led out a very old woman. As she shuffled towards us, I realised she was blind, her pupils glazed with white film. She lifted her head a little and seemed to sniff the air. I thought of Ellen and the cat woman. My heart began to thud. I longed to escape.

Uncle stepped forward, spoke to her in that strange tongue, extracted from his waistcoat some silver coins and laid them in her open palm. She ran a careful finger round the rim of each, and bit them all in turn, before secreting them in a pocket in her skirt. I had a sudden recollection of the organ-grinder’s monkey in Lyme and a sharp pain seized my chest.

‘She says she will tell your fortunes, one by one, starting with Gussie,’ said Uncle.

Lucy frowned. ‘But how will we know what she says?’

‘Because, Goosey, I shall decipher it for you. You will see that she talks in riddles, like the Sphinx. But it’s said in Rio that she has the true second sight. I’m told it’s sometimes given to the blind.’

The old woman sat in one of the chairs, and the girl, indicating that Uncle should take the other and we girls the boxes, set a little stool before the old woman’s chair.

‘Come, Augusta. You first.’

‘I’m not sure I wish to know my fortune, Papa.’

‘It’s merely entertainment. Step forward.’

Tentatively, Gussie sat upon the stool and held out her hand. The fortune-teller took it, raised it and, as Gussie flinched a little, traced
a finger over her palm. She spoke.

‘She says, “You have a good heart”,’ said Uncle, ‘which we all know is true. “You will marry for love. You will travel long and far, and you will have many children. In your old age you will be content.”’

Gussie’s hand was released.

‘There,’ he said, ‘that was a splendid fortune indeed.’

Lucy was fairly dancing towards the stool.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Now it’s your turn, Liza-Lou.’

Lifting Lucy’s hand, the fortune-teller bent over it as if she were not blind at all and could see it clearly. A long silence fell. Then,

‘She says, “You lack patience,”’ said Uncle.

At this, we all laughed, even Lucy.

‘“… which will be the cause of much trouble in your life if you do not seek to master it.”’

‘Oh dear,’ said Lucy, ‘this is surely a homily, not a fortune.’

The old woman raised her head and seemed to stare into Lucy’s face. ‘“You will rise high and you will sink low. You will reign like a queen and slink like a cur. You will marry but not for love. You will travel the world but come home. When crowds greet you and praise you, remember the fickleness of fortune. You will be pious …”’

We were unable to smother our amusement.

‘“… and you will do good works. For much of your life, dark men will surround you. The man who will wed you will be elevated but base, the man who will claim you will be noble of heart but far away.”’ She dropped Lucy’s hand abruptly. Then she spoke again, very loudly. ‘“You will have a long life,”’ Uncle translated. A pause. ‘And she says, “One day you will come again to Rio.”’

The woman sank back in her chair, muttering.

By this time, I was entirely uneasy. I trembled as Uncle motioned me to the stool. The room felt suddenly darker, the carved faces on the walls seemed to grimace at me. I shrank back. ‘I … I should prefer not to …’

He rose and propelled me gently towards the old woman who stretched out a shrivelled hand and clasped my own so that I was forced to sit, in dread, upon the fateful seat. Despite the heat in the
room, her touch was cool and papery, and she seemed almost to caress my palm. Without warning, she lifted my hand to her lips. I sat frozen, unable to move, as she spoke in her sing-song voice.

‘She says, “Poor child, you have suffered much and must suffer more but your entire life will not be one of suffering.”’ She released my hand. ‘“From the sea will come your greatest sorrow and your greatest happiness. You will not be brought high but neither will you sink low. You will have your time of sorrow and pain but, when you least expect it, God will reward you and show you a miracle. And you, too, will return to Rio.”’

I supposed this to be the end, but she spoke again. ‘“Little sister, listen to your own heart and not to the words of others. Beware the serpent in your friend’s house.”’

I stared at her, confused. The film across her eyes seemed to glitter. ‘“Do not step on him for another’s sake or the Worm will bruise your heel … and hers. In the face of loss of honour, guard your own.”’

She let my hand fall and I sat, unable to move, seized by a terrible dread. She leaned towards me, muttering.

‘She says,’ said Uncle, ‘“Do not be afraid. There is nothing to fear.”’

And from her skirts she drew out a tiny manikin, waxy-pink and clad in a skirt and bonnet. She motioned me to take it; I shook my head. The room seemed silent, empty of everyone but us two. I breathed faster. The walls shrank and pressed in upon me. Again she held out the manikin; again I resisted. She held it to her cheek, whispering to it and, as she did so, its face swelled so that it resembled one of the gargoyles on the walls. It eyes stared at me, its lips parted, and from its ghastly mouth I heard Mama’s voice:
Take care, my darling girl, take care
.

I remember nothing more. Lucy told me later that I screamed and fell insensible from the stool, striking my head on the floor, and that Uncle carried me from that evil room, calling my name and saying over and over, ‘What a fool I’ve been.’

Dazed, I came to myself propped against the broken palings of the dusty yard with its monstrous bright flowers. I recall that we stopped
at a coffee shop where someone brought me a sharp cordial tasting of bitter oranges which Uncle urged me to swallow as a restorative. I passed the remainder of the journey back to the Tullys’ house like one in a nightmare who cannot escape into the daylight of reality. When, at last, we came to the peaceful garden, I sank into Aunt’s arms, hot and tearful.

‘Why, Fanny, what is it? And you’re covered in dust.’

‘No cause for alarm,’ said Uncle, quickly and too heartily. ‘She took a tumble in the street and now she’s a little over-heated. A trifle overwrought.’

By which I understood that our visit to the fortune-teller must remain a secret from Aunt.

Lucy did not quiz or tease me. Instead, she paid me little attentions and made me laugh greatly at her impersonations of Mrs Tully scolding her servants. She was as clever a mimic as ever I saw in my life.