Laura Purcell [Purcell - Bone China

I did not expect to start this position without recalling the beginning of my employment in Hanover Square. Much as I try to forget, that day is etched upon my memory. I was bound to make comparisons. But I was not prepared for a contrast this stark.

It is nearly four oclock in the morning. The Falmouth coaching inn reeks of stale beer and tooth rot. Its grizzled landlady will not allow me the use of a chamber unless I pay for the entire night, so instead I crouch behind the cover of a nearby bush and attempt to change my costume in the poor light.

I have sunk low indeed. It pains me to recall how happy I was when I secured the position of Lady Roses maid. My fond hopes that this time I would have some luck. Mother and I sewed a new dress and I donned it carefully, standing stiff to prevent the material from creasing.

Dont ruin it, Mother said.

She was not talking just about the dress.

Now I am scrunching a bloodied gown and gloves into a ball and pushing them as far beneath my other belongings as they will go. Most of the gore has dried, even that clinging to the palms of my hands. I spit on them and rub them together before pulling on fresh gloves.

The linen bundle at the top of my trunk is still wrapped tight. Gingerly, I shake it. There is no sickening jangle of broken porcelain. Relief pushes tears into my eyes. I thought I could not grow more desolate, but now I realise that if I were to lose this

My lips are very dry.

I close the trunk and lock it. Struggling out from the bush, I dust myself down and find a place to stand beside the inn, where I have arranged to meet my new employer. The night remains like pitch and I am thankful for its secrecy. I cannot be altogether sure that I have fastened my gown straight, or that there are not twigs poking from my hair.

What a miserable beginning! The wind salts my lips. Gulls wake and call from the harbour, but it is not the pleasant sound I expected: their voices are shrill, hostile.

I had hoped But those were the thoughts of a green girl. I keep thinking I can blot out the past.

I do not deserve to be happy here.

Only one thing can aid me. I put the cold rim of the hip flask to my lips and suck.

It is empty.

How can it possibly all be gone?

Of course the man who fell from the roof. Once again I see his gaping mouth, his face torn with pain. And wicked as it is, I begrudge him every drop. He is like to die, anyhow. My liquor will have done him no good. I should have kept it for myself.

All at once I am aware of the fear, clenched in my chest, and the noxious smells carried on the wind: tar, old rope, dead fish.

Without gin, memories will swim up to the surface.

I must not panic. Am I not at an inn? Whole casks and bottles of spirits wait inside. I must dash to the taproom, ask the landlord to refill my hip flask.

I start forwards but as I do so a harness jingles to my right. A pony-trap edges out of the darkness, driven by an old man.

Miss Why?

Dismay pounds me so flat that I forget to respond to my assumed name.

Hester Why? he repeats.

Yes. Too loud, too quick.

Im come to fetch ee to Morvoren House.

He is bent nearly double over the reins. As for the pony, it is a poor-blooded thing, indifferently bred. It throws up its head and snorts, as if it does not think much of me either.

I have a trunk.

The old man does not dismount to help me. His face is weathered and hard, like the heel of a foot. Two eyes peep out from narrow slits below his forehead. Perhaps he is purblind.

It does not recommend him as a driver, but at least he cannot see the slatternly way in which I am dressed.

My tired arms just manage to hoist up my trunk. I follow it without a modicum of elegance. A change from Hanover Square, indeed. There, a carriage with yellow brocade squabs, matching curtains and liveried footmen ferried me and Lady Rose such short distances. I am fortunate that the wind is so fierce; I need no excuse for the watering of my eyes.

And what is your name? I enquire.

Gerren.

The pony raises his tail and releases a clump of steaming dung.

Gerren clicks his tongue. He steers the trap away from the yard and my last chance of precious gin, out into the world beyond.

We soon leave the lights and bustle of the Falmouth coaching inn far behind. To my eyes, the darkness seems absolute. Our lamps are woefully feeble, illuminating only the rump of our pony as it jogs along. Each hoof beat resonates through my hips. It is almost enough to make me miss the springs of the Mail coach.

Mile follows mile. Cobbles give way to a rutted dirt track. Our trap is exposed to the four winds, buffeted this way and that. Sleet strikes my cheeks, each drop a cold pinprick. I draw my knees close together, fold my arms and try to imagine myself far away.

Hours seem to pass.

Finally, the wheel bumps on a pothole and jerks me from my doze. Is that the sea I hear, mumbling to itself? Such a strange sound: fretful and louder than I expected. I lean forwards, eager for my first glimpse. But what I see makes me shudder.

A sheer drop yawns to my left, perhaps twenty feet, terminating in a flash of sand and black water. Lost in dreams, I had not observed that our rickety pony-trap was scaling the side of a cliff.

My stomach churns along with the waters below. One of the few consolations I had cherished before this night was that I should behold the ocean at last. I had imagined it blue, serene. What seethes beneath me is dark, frighteningly powerful: a cauldron of demons.

Stones slip beneath the ponys shoes. I grip on for dear life, longing for just one dram of gin to steady my nerves. It feels as if I have been travelling forever, and I cannot see an end to it.

At length, dawn grazes the horizon. The clouds are too heavy for much of a display; only the faintest ribbons of peach and lemon unfurl. Nonetheless, there is the hope of light, and colour steadily returns to the landscape. To my left, the sea softens to shingle grey. Gulls materialise, their white bellies wheeling above us. They sing a dirge at the coming of the sun, mournful and foreboding, telling me to turn back.

We be on Morvoren land now, Gerren croaks. It startles me to hear his voice.

I did not notice us pass through any gates, I observe.

Most landowners zealously guard their game against poachers, but I see there is little cause for that up here. The land is not arable but scrubby, with clumps of thrift and heather. No hares brave the exposed position. The only birds are dull of feather.

There. See it?

After the nightmare journey and wizened driver, I half expect to behold a gloomy castle straight from the pages of Mrs Radcliffes novels. But Morvoren House stands sentinel on the crest of the cliff, braving the elements with stern indifference. It is wide and squat, two stories high, finished in grey mortar with an assortment of small stones protruding from the walls roughcast, I believe it is called. Chimneys crown the grey slate roof. One of them is steaming.

There is no courtyard. No fountains play; no wooded groves lurk at the rear of the house. A stable block and a thin scattering of ash trees prove the only additions to the landscape.

There is no danger it will remind me of Hanover Square. I close my eyes for a moment, relieved and disappointed in equal measures.

Why would someone choose to make their home up here instead of in the valleys? I have heard that fishermen keep cottages set into the cliffs, but there is no sign of them. In fact, there is little hint of society at all save for this one, incongruous gentlemans abode stood close to the precipice.