Talisman Chapter 19

Chapter 19 Something was wrong here. Something was very wrong. Talisman spent the whole morning loading the cart with stones – most of which were almost too heavy for her to lift – and hauling them to the orchard. By the time she was done, she was near collapsing, but at a shouted order she pulled herself to her feet again. But why? Why was this happening to her? I didn’t know – her mind was as fogged as Alys Malherbe’s had been, when she had been hatching her secret plan. Her next task was to carry great heavy bundles of wet washing outside and put them up on the long lines that were out there. All I could pick up about her was that she was desperately unhappy or worried about something; and she was angry. Underneath everything, she was like a little smouldering volcano of rage. She was younger than me as well – thirteen, going on fourteen. Then the cook called Talisman into the kitchen – with the same scornful tone. As though Talisman Mallerby was a name to be ashamed of owning. Doing the dishes was the next task – and at least that got her hands and arms clean again. But it took ages. And everyone in that kitchen seemed to despise her so. Why were the servants treating Talisman Mallerby like the dirt beneath their feet? It made no sense at all. Talisman was near to passing out when she was finally given something to eat: some slightly stale bread and cheese. And I caught a sudden, vivid, memory from her of how things used to be. She was remembering the dining room, the damask tablecloth spread and waiting for the places to be laid and the meal to be served. She was remembering food she didn’t have to help prepare and meals she didn’t have to clean up after. And all the time her anger boiled and bubbled away inside her. Here she was, practically reduced to begging for her meals. As soon as she had eaten, she was sent outside to go and fetch vegetables from the gardener. She came back carrying a pair of heavy baskets filled with potatoes and onions. And I had a bad feeling that I knew just who was going to have to prepare them. I wasn’t wrong either. Eventually the day drew to a close. Every muscle and bone in Talisman’s body ached with weariness, yet she didn’t seem keen to go to bed. When I saw where she slept, I worked out why. I’d never seen a box bed before: it’s a bed built into a cupboard basically, with storage above and below, and doors that you can shut. And, in this case, lock. And that’s what happened to Talisman every night; the doors of the cupboard were shut and locked on her. “And that’s no more than she deserves,” the cook said, as the door slammed shut on Talisman. And that first day set the tone for the following ones. If Talisman didn’t work hard enough to satisfy the cook (and she frequently failed to satisfy her) then shouting and scolding was her lot. Too often, Talisman answered back, or was insolent in another way. When this happened, she would get her ears boxed as often as not. She didn’t seem to learn though – meekness and humility seemed to be alien concepts to her. In her place, I would have kept my head well down. None of the servants seemed to have any affection for her, and I had to admit that she was a bit of a madam. But even though she was a bit full of herself, Talisman was still having an awful life.
Through the fog of her thoughts, I was picking up some clues about her, but it was like catching fragments of a film. India. She had been out in India and come here to Ship House with her father. But there was a lot about her time in India that she was keeping deliberately hidden: buried fathoms deep. Something that had happened – or that she had done – out there was scaring her.
And I didn’t know where her father was either. That was something else she wouldn’t look at or think about. That frightened her too. Sometimes though, Talisman just seemed overwhelmed by everything. And again, I wasn’t surprised. This was an awful life that she – that we – were leading. But she seemed to accept, in one corner of herself, that the servants could treat her like this. Yet she hated it, furiously and fiercely resented it – but did not go and seek help as Lissa Malherbe had done. Why not? Talisman seldom saw the outside of the house, unless she was fetching vegetables or hanging out washing, but one day she was sent to the front of the house to fetch some flowers from the gardener. I looked with interest, to see how the house had changed since I had last seen it. It was darker in colour, and seemed much more oppressive than it had in Alys’s time. And the guerdon was here somewhere – I was sure of that. Mostly because of how everyone was behaving: the petty cruelty and unkindness towards Talisman could only have one explanation. The cook called her upstairs next – she seemed to be acting as housekeeper as well in the absence of most of the other upper servants.
“Your cousin will be coming home soon - the business in London is nearly completed now – and this will be her room. I want this floor scrubbed clean. And just remember: it’s only thanks to your cousin’s generosity that you have a home here at all.”
Some generosity, I thought. Some home this was too. Talisman sighed and went to get a bucket, scrubbing brush and water. What shocked me was the depth of her hatred for her cousin. When she had finished scrubbing the floor, she did something totally forbidden and sneaked into the bedroom that had once been hers. And her desire for revenge on her cousin, and her cousin’s father, was so strong I could almost taste it. The servants had been told to take a holiday before the family arrived, and they were planning to go out for the day by train. But not Talisman. She was dragged down into the cellars, which I noticed were now bigger and more extensive. “We’ve got just the place for you.” And the cook pushed hard at a section of the wall, which swung open.
“Normally this is where we store the valuable and precious things – but just this once, we’ll put the rubbish in here instead.”
It was a proper strong-room, designed to be secure against even the most determined burglar. There was an old bale of straw (used for packing up wine bottles once), some bread and water, and a bucket in the corner. And a couple of candles, burning in holders. But they didn’t look like they’d last all day. The room was locked, and the secret door swung shut on Talisman. She was left alone in the all-too-secure strong room. And I got the feeling that whatever she was afraid of was getting nearer. And it was all to do with ‘the business in London.’ Her father was there!
Suddenly, I knew a little more. Her father was there - and these mysterious cousins. But they shouldn’t have been there! That feeling surged so strongly through her that I was almost reeling from it. They should have been – where? Talisman clamped down so firmly on the end of that thought that I had no idea what it would have been. Talisman was left there all that day and all night too. She finally fell asleep on the floor – the straw was damp and smelly from being in the cellar for so long. The candles had burnt out, and she blinked at the light when they came to let her out. The floor had been scrubbed to the cook’s satisfaction, the furniture had been moved back in, and Talisman had been sent to make up the bed.
“And be sure you do it properly. Or I’ll have something to say to you.”
Talisman did not dare do anything other than a good job, but inside she was seething with fury. I caught glimpses of what she would like to do to this cousin, and they weren’t pretty glimpses. “We need to get you cleaned and tidied up. You look a disgrace like this.”
And the dress she had been wearing – which had once been a pretty and elaborate affair – was taken off her, and she was given new clothes to wear. “The family will be here next week. And from now on, your role is that of scullery maid. You don’t leave this kitchen. Your place is on this side of the door. And whilst we’re at it, let’s tidy your hair up a bit, shall we?” And the cook and one of the maids seized Talisman and attacked her hair with a pair of scissors. She tore herself free and stamped with rage at the sight of her hair on the floor, but it made no difference. “There!” the cook said, with vicious satisfaction. “A convict cut. Quite appropriate, really, wouldn’t you say, Talisman Mallerby?”
And I waited for Talisman’s familiar upsurge of rage at an insult, but instead I felt only deep fear.
“Because the jury have reached their verdict about what happened in India. And guess what verdict they reached, Talisman Mallerby?”

Talisman Chapter 18

Chapter 18 Once Perdita had taken the guerdon from me, I had time to look around. “Everywhere looks so different! And so do you!”
“Yes. Ship has been able to rejuvenate me completely.”
“Oh! I know what else I meant to ask you. The time I’ve just been back to – well, nearly all the old house was pulled down to make way for the new one. Did that affect Ship at all?”
Perdita’s face clouded over. “Yes. It was dreadful. It happened so fast, Ship had no time to prepare, to pull herself out of the stone. And we lost so much power – up until then, Ship had been keeping herself and us healthy, and slowly improving her reserves. Another hundred and fifty years, and we’d have been able to leave. Now she had to draw on her reserves to keep all of us alive. It was obvious we wouldn’t all be able to survive. I was the youngest – the others all voted for Ship to save me. And they aged and died as you would.”
That sounded awful, and I began to feel real pity for Ship, despite all she had put me through. I changed the subject.
“It’s lucky the guerdons all came back to this place at some point.”
Perdita laughed. “No. Not luck – they are drawn back here, and sooner or later, they will draw their owners here. With this one back in place, we can begin to repair the engines now.” Alys’s time had been interesting. I wanted to remember it. I sat down and begin to write furiously.
I recognised the chest of drawers in the middle of the room! It had belonged to Sir William. I felt a bit guilty about the way I’d treated it, sliding the carcass down the stairs. If I’d known it was as old as that, I might have shown it a bit more respect.
But what had happened to Alys next? When my hand was too stiff to write any more, I went in search of the Professor. As usual, he filled me in on the details while we played chess (and, as usual, claimed that I was trying to put him off!).
“Alys Malherbe. Now there was a dashing girl: and very much her father’s daughter, when it came to enterprise and daring. She ran away to marry her true love – got herself all the way to Spain and found him there. And then she went with him all the way to Toulouse. When the war ended, they couldn’t go back to England, for Alys’s father was still angry with her for not marrying Lord Askham.”
“Toulouse? I thought the war ended with Waterloo?”
The Professor did that eye-roll thing that he did whenever I said anything dumb. “No! Napoleon went into exile. Then he escaped. Then he raised his army. Then Wellington met him at Waterloo.”
“So were Peter and Alys there as well?”
“Yes, and that’s when she saved his life. After the battle, she went and found him injured on the field – and saved his life by attending promptly to his wounds.”
So all that first aid she had learnt from the doctor had come in useful! We played on for a while, and when we’d got to the usual stage of me having four pieces to his six, I asked him if Alys ever came home again.
“Now that’s another story. And quite a sensation in its time. Lord Askham – you know, the man her father wanted her to marry – married someone else instead. Sir William’s diaries are quite bitter about this, and how he considers Alys has betrayed him, and then he says he will never mention her name again. And he doesn’t. In the run-up to Waterloo, all the diary entries are about the effect the war is having on the stock market – and then suddenly, in the middle of all this, there’s just a few lines.
“I fear I may have misjudged my daughter. It seems she was a better judge of character than I was. It might have been my Alys at the centre of this scandal.” And that’s all he wrote. “What scandal? What happened?” I had conceded defeat, and we had started a new game, but I wanted to know more.
“You don’t know from Sir William’s diaries, but I was intrigued. So I did some research, and found out all about it from some letters.
Lord Askham married a young girl, of good birth, but with no family apart from an elderly aunt. Or so he thought. He didn’t know that she had a much older brother, who had been cast out in disgrace when he was only sixteen – before she’d even been born. Anyway, this brother came back, now nearly forty, and wanted to see his sister. But he didn’t dare approach her under his own name, so he got a job as a groom at Lord Askham’s country place. And – so the tale went – one night he heard screams from the dungeons, followed the noise, and saw what Lord Askham was doing to her.” “What happened next?” I had forgotten the chess game – this was far more interesting.
“He knocked Lord Askham down, and chained him up. Then he rousted the local justices out of bed, and made them see what Lord Askham had been doing. And he spread the story – Askham was ruined, socially, and had to go and live abroad.”
“And his wife?”
“She was ruined socially too – imagine the gossip about her!”
That seemed a bit unfair to me, and I said so.
“Her brother took care of her, so she wasn’t totally abandoned. Now, you seem remarkably ignorant about Wellington and Napoleon – here, read this.”
The book he gave me was called The Autobiography of Sir Harry Smith 1787-1819. A classic story of love and war. And it was all about Harry and Juana – the girl who had so fascinated and inspired Alys! It was lovely to be back, tending my own garden. But I wished Ship would let me out! I wanted to see the village – see what it looked like now. I phoned Sapphire and chatted enthusiastically to her, telling her about the garden I was helping to tend, and the book I was reading about the peninsular war. She asked after the invalid lady I was supposed to be looking after, and I thought of Perdita and answered, quite truthfully, that she was getting much better, and they’d said it was all thanks to me. “Tallie, it’s getting difficult at this end. Brett wants to know where you are. He wants to visit you. What am I going to say to him?” “Tell him there’s no way he’d be allowed to visit. Child Protection. No un-CRB checked adults allowed within a five-mile radius of the place. People are paranoid enough these days that he should believe that. And that’s why you’ve not visited either.”
Alys Malherbe had escaped Lord Askham at a time when girls had far fewer rights and freedoms. Brett wasn’t having me – and he wasn’t going to spoil things for Harry and Sapphire either. Like Alys I had the beginnings of a plan – once I got away from here, that is. Sapphire giggled like a girl.
“Nice one, Tallie. Are you still enjoying yourself?”
“Yes. It’s been really hard work at times, but, yes, I’ve enjoyed it. It’ll be nice to see you both again though – I’ve missed you.”
“Must be lovely being out in the country though. I do envy you.” My plan was very simple. I wanted to live here – here, in Ship House where so many of my namesakes had lived. The only minor trouble was money – even I could see that the house needed a small fortune spending on it. Small we could do, financially – but not fortune. I finished cleaning the hall floor, and Lissa’s memories didn’t haunt me so strongly this time. I actually felt that I could bear to find out what had happened to her. I asked the Professor about Lissa during one of our chemistry sessions. He told me to concentrate on the experiment in hand, and then he’d tell me: I couldn’t measure accurately, nor observe rates of change if my mind was on something else. But he wasn’t cross; in fact, he was in an unusually good mood. I commented on this, and he said that his brother would be here soon!
“Jupiter?”
“Yes – he’s been very ill for quite a while, but now he’s well on his way to recovery. Now concentrate!” When I’d finished the experiment and written down all my results, then he relented, and told me about Lissa.
“Now that was a classic piece of village justice. The Malherbes had always been good landlords, and well-loved ones too.”
I thought about the guerdon that was somewhere here at Ship House, encouraging the best in them.
“When the village found out what had been happening to Lissa, they took matters into their own hands. They put Ruth and Beatrice into the stocks on the village green, and I believe they got well-pelted with rotten vegetables and the odd egg. Then they ducked them in the village pond to clean them up. Then they sent them to London, to their father’s house there. The lawyer himself delivered them, together with a suit against Lissa’s uncle for the monies stolen.”
“Cool!” I loved the idea of those two in the stocks, being pelted with rotten fruit. “Did her brother come home?”
“Yes – and married, and raised a happy family. Lissa married nearby as well, and saw him often, and their children grew up playing together at each other’s houses.” I was pleased to know that Lissa did have a happy ending. After the chemistry lesson (and before a geography session) I went into the orchard to look at clearing that next.
This place was so run-down in parts! Great gaps in the wall were filled in with chain-link fence. There was a lot of work to do here, and it would need money. Once again, I wondered where the money was that the family had once had. Not here now, that was for certain. The place was amazing for wild life though! I was just watching the butterflies, when Perdita came out in search of me. And that was unusual. She didn’t tend to leave the basement much, never mind the house.
“Tallie. You must be careful. This next time is going to be really dangerous. Listen. With the other guerdons now back in place, then with this one, all you have to do is touch it. You don’t have to lift it, or hold it. As soon as you find it, touch it! Don’t wait! I can’t stop Ship sending you after it, but I can warn you.” And then she ran off, leaving me puzzled – and a little afraid – among the butterflies and brambles. “I suppose,” I reflected, as I weeded and watered my little garden, “Perdita remembers what happened in the next time Ship is sending me to. But she’s never been worried before – and I thought some of those other times were pretty rough. So…” and I never got to finish my thought, because at that moment, Ship pulled me away from my present time, and thrust me back into an earlier one. “Come on, Talisman Mallerby.” And the scornful way they said Talisman Mallerby had to be heard to be believed.
“Get those crates shifted. And then get yourself back here and get those stones moved.”
I was cold, I was hungry, I was muddy up my legs and my arms past my elbows. What had Ship landed me in this time?