The Pierced Heart: A Novel Read online

  “There are people on the cliff!” cried my father then, looking from the porthole. “They have seen our plight—some have brought lamps to help signal our way!”

  We both watched then, scarcely breathing, as the captain made one last desperate attempt to steer our passage, and suddenly, by what luck or skill I do not know, we were plunging forwards between the two piers of the little harbour and pitching, with a violent jolt and the scrape of wood against stone, as every spar and rope on the ship seemed to spring loose and crash about the deck, against the sea wall.

  We were hurled, both of us, against the door of our cabin, and lay on the floor a few moments, scarcely believing we still breathed. And then there were shouts above, and numbers of townspeople started to swarm over the ship, commending the captain for his courage, and helping us up the steps and along a strip of wood that had been laid by way of a makeshift drawbridge between the deck and the wall. The storm was passing fast now, and by the time our boxes were unloaded and a carriage commanded, the wind had dropped and the rain was hardly more than a thin drizzle. I could see little of the town in the gloom, and as the horses pulled away from the quayside my father told me that he had arranged for one of the local women to open up our house and lay in such provisions as we might need.

  “I thought you should prefer that,” he said, somewhat distractedly, looking back to where a small crowd was still gathered about the man hauling our luggage onto a cart, and pressing close to read the labels, “to spending our first nights in a public inn or lodgings.”

  I smiled at him, feeling suddenly a rush of hope. It would be a new commencement for us. A new life of peace and tranquillity, where I could be myself, and no longer bear the burden of being “She who summons souls.”

  We crossed a bridge over the water towards the far side of town and turned towards the open sea, climbing all the time along narrow cobbled streets until we drew up outside a cottage with lights in every window and pots of flowers by the door. A bright fire was burning in the hearth as we stood in the vestibule taking off our coats and hats.

  “It is but a small house,” my father said, and then, more softly, as if to himself, as he looked around, “rather smaller, indeed, than I recall.”

  “It is perfect, Papa!” I said, but even as I smiled at him I suddenly felt a little faint, and my limbs began to tremble so that I had to put out my hand to steady myself.

  “Come,” said my father quickly, “it is no wonder if you are tired, after the alarms of our arrival. Go and sit by the fire and I will make some tea. I believe Mrs Croft has left us milk.”

  And so I sat, looking about me, realising slowly that my father, no doubt from a wish that I should feel at once at home, must have sent some of our possessions ahead of us, for I recognised first one and then another—the little statuette on the mantelpiece, the wax roses under their glass dome, and there, on the low table, the scrapbook I have compiled since I was a child, year after year pasting into it the playbills and the newspaper cuttings and all the little mementos of my father’s success. It is a long time since I have added anything to its pages, and I wondered if by leaving it in view my father was encouraging me, in his delicate and discreet way, to take up the scissors once more and thereby find some useful employment to fill my hours. I took it onto my lap and turned back to the very beginning, and the daguerreotype of my mother with my seven-year-old self on her lap. It was a little blurred, where we had not sat quite so still as the artist had bid us, and time had so deepened the contrast of pale and dark that my mother looked a little severe, even forbidding, but it was in every other way so good a portrait, and so very like, that by the time my father returned with the tray, the tears were streaming silently down my face.

  “Lucy, Lucy,” he said, as he saw what I was looking at. “There is no need to distress yourself so. You must think now of yourself. Of your own health. She would not wish to see you so. She would wish you to be happy.”

  I smiled then, a little weakly, I own, and took a deep breath, then I sat up straight as my mother always taught me and took the teapot in my hand. “Shall I pour for you, Papa?”

  I slept a deep and dreamless sleep that night, and woke to a flood of orange light as rich and strange as anything my father had ever magicked. I did not know where I was for a moment, and started up in my bed, my heart pounding, until I realised it was nothing but the dawn. I had never wakened by the sea before, and when I rose and went to the window the water was running like liquid gold under the huge and slowly rising sun, and the gulls wheeling dark like broken fragments of midnight. And when I looked back towards the town I saw the abandoned abbey standing high on the promontory, its ruined arches black against the flaming sky. I remembered my memory then—how I had imagined that ruin, and the birds circling above it, and some impulse seized me to go outside, in all that glowing light. Not the false light of the phantasmagoria, kindled by artifice in the cavernous underground, but the pure bright light of an ordinary new day. I dressed myself quickly, then slipped out of the house as silently as I was able, and turned towards the harbour. The boats were just, at that hour, coming in from sea, and I watched as the fishermen hauled their catch onto the quayside and the fish slithered silver from the nets. The men eyed me curiously though without discourtesy, as I passed, one or two touching their caps, but aside from them, I saw scarce a living soul. It was like a doll’s town, all laid out for my own pleasure, and I slowed my pace, determined to be charmed by all I saw—the huddle of brightly painted houses rising above the quay, the neat little boats bobbing on the water, the lobster pots stacked like one vast honeycomb of basketwork, and the horde of hopeful local cats, milling about the landing boats.

  It was only when I had crossed the bridge and commenced the long climb to the abbey that I began to doubt my own strength. But I told myself that this, too, would pass. That the sea, and the clean air, and my new life would wash my old troubles away, like flotsam from the white sand. As I drew nearer the abbey I saw that there was a smaller church before it, and a graveyard filled with ancient grey stones, some of them tilted like sails in the wind, as if the wizened mariners buried beneath had the rigging of their own tombs. I was smiling to myself at this idea when I suddenly came to a stop, my hand to my mouth. For there, by the wall where the stones were not so old, and not so lichened, I saw a name I knew.

  It was my mother’s grave.

  I had known; in some part of my mind, I must have known. We had brought her body home, and here, then, she must have been laid. But I did not know which cemetery had received her, and I had no recollection of ever seeing this stone. So moving in its sheer simplicity: BELOVED MOTHER AND WIFE. And the carving of an angel holding a little child. There were tendrils of ivy entwined about the base, and I bent down and removed my gloves so that I could strip the leaves away. I was so absorbed in my task, and in the cleaning of the letters with my handkerchief, that I did not notice there was a little wiry dog at my feet. I did not notice, in fact, until it stood up on its back legs and started to paw my dress, begging in the most insistent and winning fashion.

  I looked round and saw that a young lady sat on a wooden bench some yards away, where the cemetery overlooked the town and the sea. A young lady dressed all in white. It came to me then how I had pictured a girl in white here, seated alone, and feared for a moment that my mind had once more betrayed me, and she was no more than an illusion conjured by my imagination, like the colours I had conjured in the phantasmagoria flame. But no. This young lady was as real as her dog, which by way of proof had by then left several muddy paw-prints on the hem of my gown.

  “Jip! Jip!” I heard her cry then, perhaps surmising what had happened. “Come here, you naughty dog! The lady does not wish to be bothered by you!”

  I hastened to reassure her that I was, on the contrary, quite charmed by her little companion, and led him back towards where his mistress had remained seated all the while. She was of the same age as me, with a face as pale as my own, but where my
hair is thick and lustrous and curls to my waist, hers was dull and brown and cut short about her neck. I remembered how my own hair had been shorn after my mother died, and I was all those months confined to my bed and wondered if she, too, had perhaps been lately ill.

  “It is an unusual name for a pet,” I remarked, as the dog settled down at his mistress’s feet.

  She smiled. “It began as a joke. My brother bought me Jip as a gift for my last birthday, and my name being Dora, and the first instalments of Mr Dickens’s book having just then appeared, Tom thought it a fine jest to name Jip after Dora Spenlow’s little dog. That jest has fallen a little flat since, of course.” She sighed, and caressed Jip’s rough head. “My pet does indeed resemble his namesake, but I am doing my best not to emulate mine.”

  I did not know what she meant by this, not having read this book or even heard of it, so I was forced merely to smile and pet the dog, in the hopes of concealing my ignorance.

  “I am forgetting my manners,” she said, holding out her hand. “My name is Dora—Dora Holman.”

  I introduced myself, and she perceived then, I think, that my English, though perfect, had the ring here and there of my travels, and she asked if I was visiting the town.

  “My father was born here,” I told her, “but left many years ago. We have travelled much on the Continent, and now we are returned to make this our home.”

  “I have lived here all my life,” she said, smoothing her dress. “It was once so quiet, this place, but now it draws so many tourists—especially when the weather is bright and they gather in their dozens hoping to see the ghost of the nun who founded the abbey. They say you can see her, wrapped in her shroud, when the sun strikes the highest window at a certain time of day, and there are others who swear she walks here by night, clad all in white. It is all nonsense, of course, nothing more than a trick of the light, or an owl, caught in the corner of the eye, but it draws people from miles about. I confess I do not understand this new compulsion so many have to terrify themselves, whether it be by reading silly novels, or watching even sillier things performed onstage.” She sighed sadly. “I fear life brings terrors enough of its own, without one needing to seek them.”

  I turned away, towards the water, a little ashamed. Nothing in the world would have induced me to tell this girl my past; I wished to leave all that life behind me, on the farther side of the sea.

  “That is one reason I come here so early,” she continued. “When the weather is good my maid will bring me up here in our donkey-cart, and I can sit here with Jip and watch the sun rise, and see scarcely anyone until she comes again to bring me home. The air is so clear and restorative in the early morning. Or it is usually so.”

  She coughed then for some moments, and held her handkerchief to her face, and when her hand dropped to her lap I saw there were two spots of blood on the white linen. And then I was sorry, for I knew what that meant, and I saw in her eyes that she, too, knew it, and yet was reconciled to it.

  She folded the handkerchief calmly, though her breath was becoming every moment more laboured. “If you will forgive me, I think I should return. It is no doubt the effect of last night’s storm. I do not know if you were abroad, but I am told the vessel that came in was all but given up for lost. My father said that one of the old sailors claimed only the devil could have brought that ship home.”

  She was by then coughing so wretchedly that I feared we could not possibly return to the town without some assistance, and looked about anxiously for someone I might call to. But there being no-one nigh and her maid not expected for more than an hour, I had no choice but to offer her my arm and hope we could descend the steps in time. She leaned heavily against me as we slowly traced the long path back down towards the town, pausing more and more frequently to catch her breath, and it was half an hour more before we reached the tall and handsome house by the harbour that she told me was her home. The maid who answered my ring looked at Miss Holman in alarm, calling out at once for her master, and the last thing I saw before the door closed was a tall handsome man in a formal coat rushing down the passage towards Dora and shouting for the footman to go for the doctor.

  My own father was scarcely less distressed when he opened the door of our own cottage.

  “Where have you been?” he cried, seizing me by the shoulder. “I have been half-frantic with worry—I thought you had walked again in your sleep and I have been combing the streets for hours, fearing I might turn the next corner and find you as I found you once before—or the victim of some even worse fate. You are ill, Lucy, how could you leave the house without informing me?”

  I thought then, too late, that I might have left him a note.

  “I am sorry, Papa. I woke at dawn and the sunrise was so beautiful. I have only been walking in the town.”

  He turned and went back into the sitting-room and sat down heavily on the sopha, and when I followed him I saw that he had his head in his hands. “You owe it to me to be more careful. Remember what I promised your mother on her death-bed. That I would not allow you out of my sight. All these years, I have kept that promise.”

  I sat down next to him and took his hand. “And all these years I have needed that loving care, but now I am a grown woman. I know my mother feared what might befall me alone in the crowds of Vienna, but what harm could come to me here? Indeed, it seems to be entirely the opposite, for I have found myself a friend.”

  “A friend?” said my father abruptly, looking up. “But you know no-one here. Who is this friend?”

  I hastened to reassure him, describing my encounter with Miss Holman, and the house where I had returned with her, and he seemed a little appeased, saying he knew of the family, and her father was a widower and a man of some repute in the neighbourhood. He said at last that he would have a lock affixed at once to my bedroom door, and gave me his permission to call the next day and enquire after Miss Holman’s health, and then we changed the subject, by silent consent, and I went to make the breakfast.

  7 APRIL

  It has been two weeks now, and my Dora and I have met every day. When she has been well enough we have walked a little together and she has shown me the town, the shops selling the pretty ammonites that stud the cliffs hereabouts, and the jewellery of jet that is another of this district’s claims to renown. We bought each other gifts that day, matching brooches of intricate carved flowers, and I have mine on the desk before me as I write these words. But she has been too wearied to walk much, and as a consequence we have spent our hours sitting on that bench I now think of as our own. I have laid new flowers every day on my mother’s grave, and I have thrown a little ball for Jip, but mostly we have simply sat together in a comfortable silence, looking down at the harbour and the town, and the changing character of the sea, as the wind and the clouds and the water blur and separate into all the colours of the sky.

  I do not think I will ever tire of that view, and Dora laughed at me yesterday, saying that I had not even explored the abbey yet, and if I wished, she felt strong enough in the pale new sunshine, to show it to me herself. And so we walked at her slow pace up to the broken salt-bitten cloisters where the monks once prayed, and worked, and sang, and now lie sleeping beneath the thin dry grass. It was a cold day, and there were few visitors wandering the desolate nave, save one or two hardy young men, one of whom tipped his hat to us as we passed, in the most serious fashion. And once or twice I glimpsed the figure of an older, taller man striding ahead of us, followed—or at least so I thought—by a large black dog. I think Jip saw it, too, because he retreated suddenly to his mistress’s side, growling and snarling.

  “Jip, Jip!” she cried gaily, “I do declare you grow more like Dora Spenlow’s bad-tempered pug every day!”

  I hastened to excuse her pet, saying I believed Jip was only seeking to protect her, but by then the man and the dog were nowhere to be seen and she teased me, saying I was seeing ghosts. I laughed, then, in my turn, but I could not smile, and I think she guessed I was tr
oubled in some way by her words, for she laid her hand kindly on my arm and said that Alice would be waiting with the cart, and it was time to return for luncheon.

  “And you are to eat with us today! Papa has expressly asked me to invite you.” And as I opened my mouth in demurral, “Do not worry. We will send a message to your father so he will not be concerned.”

  There was a little colour in her cheeks as she said this, and it struck me that her breathing had likewise been less strained, despite the exertions of our excursion. I have never had a friend of my own before—never had someone my own age I could talk with, and laugh with—but I am sure that the improvement in my own spirits these last days is in no small measure due to my Dora’s companionship, so perhaps it may have been the same for her. I know only that I have dreamed no dream since we came to this town, and neither waked nor walked by night.

  And just as I have never had a friend of my own, I have never dined in a house not my home, and I confess I was a little daunted by the prospect of meeting Dora’s family. But my fears were groundless. They were so very kind, so very energetic, so very lively, I had no time to feel gauche or in the way, and by the time the roast mutton was being carved by Mr Holman it seemed as if I had known them half my life. Dora has a sister some five years younger than herself, and a brother two years older, who has unruly brown hair, and inky fingernails, and a ready smile. He is training to be a lawyer, like his father, which I suppose must explain the ink, but he confided in me that if left to his own inclination he would far rather be a poet. He has written one part of a most ambitious work on the subject of the sack of Rome by the Vandals which he promised to show me, though I noticed his sisters seemed not to take his literary ambitions very seriously, and ragged him mercilessly upon his lofty choice of subject, saying he had written several hundred lines and yet still not concluded even his prolegomena.