The Essex Serpent Read online

  Eyeing the last of the macaroons, he said: ‘Surely it’s best left to the experts, by now: we’re not in the dark ages, reliant on crackpots in petticoats crawling about with a tack-hammer and paint-brush. There are colleges and societies and grants, and so on.’

  ‘Well? What d’you expect me to do? Sit at home planning supper and waiting for a new pair of shoes to arrive?’ Cora’s temper, which burned slow, made itself seen first in a hardening of her grey eyes to flint.

  ‘Of course not!’ Thinking he detected an edge to her look, Charles said: ‘No-one who knows you would expect that. But there are things that matter now that could use your time and your mind, not scraps of animals that meant nothing while living and less when dead!’ As evidence of his desperation he gestured towards Martha. ‘Could you not join Martha’s society – whatever it’s called – and sort out the plumbing in Whitechapel, or the orphans in Peckham, or whatever it is she goes in for these days?’

  ‘Yes, Cora. Couldn’t you?’ Grinning at Charles, knowing that he disapproved as much of her political conscience as of Cora’s muddy boots, Martha made her blue eyes into pools of appeal.

  ‘Meant nothing!’ Cora drew a breath to deliver a well-rehearsed speech on the significance of her beloved scraps of animals, but Katherine placed a cool white hand on hers and said, as if oblivious to the past few minutes: ‘And you intend to make your way there and find a beast of your own?’

  ‘I do! And I will: you’ll see! Michael never’ – at the name she faltered, and unconsciously touched the scar at her neck – ‘He thought it a waste of time, and that I’d be better off reading The Lady to see what shape skirt I ought to wear to the Savoy.’ She thrust her plate away in disgust. ‘Well: I can do what I like now, can’t I?’ She eyed each of them in turn, and Katherine said: ‘Darling child, of course you can: and we are very proud of you. Aren’t we, Charles?’ There came a humble nod. ‘And what’s more, we can help: I know just the family for you!’

  ‘Do we?’ Charles looked dubious. His only friend in Colchester was the choleric Colonel Howard, and he felt certain that the sight of Cora might deliver the final blow to his battle-battered health.

  ‘Charles! The Ransomes! Those gorgeous children and that awful house, and Stella with her dahlias!’

  The Ransomes! Charles brightened at the thought. William Ransome was the disappointing brother of a Liberal MP of whom the Ambroses were fond. Disappointing, because at an early age he’d decided to hitch his considerable intellect not to the law or to Parliament, or even to the service of medicine, but to the church. What was worse, the natural ambition that generally accompanies a good mind was so lacking he’d consented to spend the past fifteen years shepherding his small flock in a bleak village down by the Blackwater estuary, marrying a fair-haired sprite and doting on his children. Charles and Katherine had stayed there once after a journey to Harwich had gone awry and come away devoted to the Ransome brood, Katherine clutching a paper packet of dahlia seeds which promised to produce black blooms. She turned to Cora.

  ‘I tell you, you never saw a more perfect family. The good Reverend Ransome and little Stella, no bigger than a fairy and twice as pretty. They live down at Aldwinter, which is almost as bad as it sounds – but on a bright night you can see right across to Point Clear, and in the mornings watch the Thames Barges off with their cargo of oysters and wheat. If anyone could show you your way round the coast there, it’s them – don’t look at me like that, dear, you know perfectly well you can’t go trudging off with nothing but a map.’

  ‘It is a foreign shore, mind: you may require a phrasebook. There are kissing-gates and croats, and acres of tidal land they call the saltings.’ Charles licked sugar from his forefinger, and contemplated another pastry. ‘Will once walked me through Aldwinter churchyard and showed me the graves they call broken-backed: the villagers reckon if you die of TB the earth sinks down into the coffin.’

  Cora attempted to conquer her scowl. Some bull-necked country curate all Calvin and correction, and his parsimonious wife! She could not, off-hand, think of anything worse, and inferred from Martha’s rigidity at her side that her feelings were shared. But still – it would be useful to have some local knowledge of Essex geography. What’s more, it was not necessarily the case that a man of the cloth would be ignorant of modern science: among her favourite books was a thesis from an anonymous Essex rector on the high antiquity of the earth, which crisply dispensed with notions of calculating the date of creation from Old Testament genealogies.

  She said, tentatively, ‘Perhaps it would be good for Francis. I spoke to Luke Garrett about him, you know. Not that I think there is anything wrong with him!’ She flushed, because nothing shamed her as much as her son. Acutely aware that her unease in the presence of Francis was shared by most who met him, it was impossible to exculpate herself; his remoteness, his obsessions, must be her fault, for where else could she lay the blame? Garrett had been uncharacteristically quiet, soft-spoken; he’d said, ‘You cannot pathologise him – you cannot attempt to make a diagnosis. There is no blood test for eccentricity, no objective measure for your love or his!’ Perhaps, he conceded, he might benefit from analysis, though it was hardly recommended for children, whose consciousness was barely formed. There was little she could do but continue to watch over him, as best she could; to love him, as far as he would let her.

  The Ambroses shared a glance, and Katherine said hastily: ‘Fresh air would be the best thing for him, I should think. Won’t you let Charles write to the Reverend, and make an introduction? Aldwinter’s barely fifteen miles from here – I’ve known you walk further! – and you could at least spend an afternoon there, and let Stella give you tea.’

  ‘I’ll write to William, and give him your address – you’re staying at the George, I assume? You’ll all make fast friends, I’m sure, and find piles of your wretched fossils.’

  ‘We’re staying at the Red Lion,’ said Martha. ‘Cora thought it looked authentic, and was disappointed not to find straw on the floor and a goat tethered to the bar.’ Reverend Ransome, she thought, scornfully: as if some slow-witted parson and his fatcheeked children could interest her Cora! But kindness shown to her friend always earned her loyalty, and so she tipped the last of the cakes onto Charles’s plate and said quite sincerely: ‘I’ve so enjoyed seeing you again: d’you think you might come back to Essex soon, before we go?’

  ‘Probably.’ He took on an air of noble suffering. ‘And by then we expect a whole new species to be discovered and anatomised, and ready for the Seaborne Wing at Castle Museum.’ With a little gesture to his wife that signalled they should depart, he reached for his coat, and then with an arm arrested mid-sleeve said ‘Oh!’ and turned grinning to Cora. ‘How could we forget! Have you heard of this strange beast that’s been putting the fear of all the gods into the local populace?’

  Katherine laughing said: ‘Charles, don’t tease: it’s just some game of Chinese whispers that went a little too far.’

  Struggling with his jacket, Ambrose ignored his wife. ‘Now here’s a mystery of science for you – put that appalling hat down and listen! Three hundred years ago or thereabouts a dragon took up residence in Henham, twenty miles north-west of here. Ask at the library and they’ll show you the leaflets they nailed up round the town: eye-witness accounts from farmers, and a picture of some kind of leviathan with wings of leather and a toothy grin. It used to lie about basking in the sunshine and snapping its beak (its beak, mind you!), and no-one thought much of it until a boy got his leg broken. It vanished soon after, but the rumours never did. Every time crops failed or the sun eclipsed, or there was a plague of toads, someone somewhere would see the beast down on the riverbank, or lurking on the village green. And listen: it’s back!’ Charles looked triumphant, as if he’d personally spawned the beast for her benefit, so that Cora regretted diminishing his delight by saying, ‘Oh Charles, I know – I heard! We’ve just been treated to a lecture on the Essex Earthquake – haven’t we, Mart
ha? – and how it shook something loose out there in the estuary. It’s all I can do to prevent myself from heading there now with notebook and camera and seeing it for myself!’

  Katherine consoled her husband with a kiss, and said placidly, ‘Stella Ransome wrote and told us all about it. On New Year’s Day a local man was washed up on the Aldwinter saltings with his neck broken. Drunk, I should think, and got caught in the tide, but the whole village is up in arms. There’ve been several sightings just off the coast, and someone swore they saw it moving up the Blackwater at midnight with murder in its eyes. There, Charles, you were right: did you ever see anyone so excited?’

  Cora shifted like a child in her seat, and pulled at a lock of hair. ‘Just like Mary Anning’s sea-dragon, all those years ago! Every six months a paper’s published setting out ways and places extinct animals might still live on – imagine, just imagine, if we were to encounter one in so dull a place as Essex! And imagine what it might mean: further evidence that it’s an ancient world we live in, that our debt is to natural progression, not some divinity –’

  ‘Well: I don’t know about that,’ said Charles, ‘But it will interest you, no doubt. And if you visit Aldwinter you must ask the Ransomes to show you their very own Essex serpent: one of the pews in the parish church has a winged snake making its way up the arm-rest, though since the latest sightings the good rector has been threatening to take it off with a chisel.’

  ‘That settles it,’ said Cora. ‘Write your letters, as many as you like: we’ll suffer the attentions of a hundred parsons for the sake of one sea-dragon, won’t we, Martha?’ Leaving Charles to attend to the bill, and dispense the immense tips with which he salved his conscience, the women stepped out onto the High Street. The rain had receded and the declining sun sent the shadow of St Nicholas across their path. Katherine gestured across to the broad white façade of her hotel. ‘I’ll go upstairs right away and find some headed paper, and warn them you’ll bring trouble, with your London ideas and your disgraceful coat.’ She plucked at Cora’s sleeve, and said: ‘Martha, can’t you do anything about this?’

  Since half her pleasure in adopting such a ramshackle appearance lay in her friends’ disgust, Cora turned up her collar against the wind, tilted her hat like a boy, and stuck her thumbs in her belt. ‘The wonderful thing about being a widow is that, really, you’re not obliged to be much of a woman anymore – but here comes Charles, and I can tell by that look he’s in need of his evening drink. Thank you, dear both.’ She kissed them, and pressed Katherine’s hand much too hard. She’d have liked to say more, and explain that her years of marriage had so degraded her expectation of happiness that to sit cradling a teacup with no thought for what waited behind the curtains on Foulis Street seemed little short of miraculous. Smiling a farewell, she stepped briskly across the road towards the Red Lion, wondering if it was Francis’s face she saw at the window, and whether he might be pleased to see her.

  Charles Ambrose

  THE GARRICK CLUB

  WC

  20th February

  My Dear Will,

  I trust you are all in good health, and hope it won’t be long before we see you again. Katherine asks me to tell Stella that her dahlias did very well, but turned out blue rather than black – perhaps it was the soil?

  I am writing in order to introduce to you a very great friend of ours, who I think would benefit from meeting you both. She is the widow of Michael Seaborne, who died early this year (you might recall having kindly prayed for his return to good health, but the Almighty’s will evidently lay elsewhere).

  We’ve known Mrs Seaborne for many years. She is an unusual woman. I think of her as having an exceptional – really I might even say a masculine! – intelligence: she is something of a naturalist, which Katherine tells me is the latest fashion among society women. It seems harmless enough, and seems to bring her pleasure after a time of great sadness.

  She has recently come to Essex together with her son and companion in order to study the coastline there (something about fossil bird remains at Walton-on-the-Naze, I believe), and has been staying in Colchester. Of course I told her about the legend of the Essex Serpent and the rumours of its return, and about the curious carving in All Saints church, and she was most intrigued, and plans to visit.

  If she comes to Aldwinter (and knowing Cora, she will be already planning her journey!) perhaps you and Stella could make her welcome? She has given me permission to supply details of her current address, which I enclose here together with our good wishes, as ever –

  Yours faithfully,

  CHARLES HENRY AMBROSE

  3

  The Reverend William Ransome, Rector of Aldwinter Parish, returned the letter to its envelope and propped it thoughtfully on the windowsill. He could never think of Charles Ambrose without a smile – the man had a limitless appetite for making friends, often (though certainly not always) out of genuine affection, and it was not at all surprising that he should have taken so fondly to a widow – but despite the smile the letter unsettled him. It was not precisely that newcomers were unwelcome, but one or two phrases (society women … masculine intelligence …) were calculated to trouble any diligent minister of the church. He could picture her as precisely as if her photograph had been included in the envelope: entering the lonely final stages of life bolstered by yards of taffeta and a half-baked enthusiasm for the new sciences. Her son was doubtless down from Oxford or Cambridge, and would bring with him some secret vice which would either thrill Colchester, or make him completely unsuited to civilised company. She probably lived on a diet of boiled potatoes and vinegar, hoping Byron’s diet might improve her silhouette, and would almost certainly have Anglo-Catholic tendencies, and deplore the absence of an ornate cross on the All Saints altar. In the space of five minutes he furnished her with an obnoxious lap-dog, a toadying companion with no flesh on her bones, and a squint.

  His sole consolation was that Aldwinter was so resolutely unpicturesque a destination that he couldn’t imagine a society woman – even a bored and meddlesome widow – troubling to visit. Each spring a few ardent naturalists arrived to document the handful of seabirds that passed through the salt-marshes, but even these tended to be the drabbest species imaginable, their muddy feathers so indistinguishable from their surroundings they often passed without notice. Aldwinter had only one inn and two stores, and though its village green was occasionally considered the longest, if not the largest, in Essex, there was very little to recommend it even to its own inhabitants. Aside from the church’s curiosities – which were in truth a minor embarrassment to each successive incumbent – the only item of interest within five miles was the blackened hull of a clipper which could be seen when the Blackwater estuary lay at low tide, and which the village children decorated each harvest in a kind of pagan rite of which he dutifully disapproved. The train line terminated seven miles to the west, so that the farmers still relied on barges to carry oats and barley to the mills at St Osyth, and onward to London for sale. Perhaps the best that could be said for Aldwinter was that if it was neither wealthy nor beautiful, it was at least not particularly poor. It was not in the Essex character to succumb miserably to change and decay, and when John Barleycorn came under threat from cheap imports one or two tenant farmers had tried their hand at caraway and coriander, and shared the hire cost of a threshing-engine which not only increased their output to a startling degree, but gave the entire village a festive air as the children gathered to marvel at its size, its thunderous voice, and its gusts of steam.

  Will felt an ill temper settle on him, and resisting the urge to toss the envelope onto the fire hid it behind a sheet of paper presented to him that morning by John, the youngest of his boys. It was a drawing which might’ve been of an alligator which had acquired a set of wings, but might equally have been a greatly enlarged caterpillar eating a moth. His mother was convinced it was the latest demonstration of his genius, but Will was unconvinced: he remembered his own childhood spent fi
lling notebooks with engines and devices so complex he’d clean forget their purpose from one page to the next, but what had come of that?

  And it was not only the threat of a probably harmless widow that dampened his mood, but the trouble that had lately settled on the parish. He surveyed John’s drawing, and this time took it for a winged sea-dragon approaching the village. Since the discovery on New Year’s morning of a drowned man down on the Blackwater marshes – naked, his head turned almost 180 degrees, a look of dread in his wide-open eyes – the Essex Serpent had ceased to be merely a device to keep children in check, and had begun to stalk the streets. On Friday nights in the White Hare drinkers claimed to have seen it, children playing on the saltings needed no urging to come home before dark, and no amount of reasoning on Will’s part could persuade them the drowned man was a victim of nothing more than drink and the tides.

  He resolved to shake himself into a better frame of mind by walking a circuit of the parish – looking up a few folk as he went, quelling rumours of a sea-dragon wherever they arose. He took up his hat and coat, and there was whispering at the study door (the children were forbidden entry, but were not above trying the handle); he bellowed threats of bread-and-water for a fortnight, and made his habitual escape through the window.

  Aldwinter that day was aptly named: frost lay on the hard earth, and black oaks clutched the pale sky. Will thrust his hands into his pockets, and set out. The red brick house behind had been new the day he’d first crossed the threshold, Stella coming slowly up the tiled pathway with her swollen belly cradled in her hands, and Joanna bringing up the rear trailing an invisible pet (species never established) on a length of string. Bay windows on both floors gave the impression of shallow turrets on either side of the front door, above which a fanlight in coloured glass caught an hour of light each afternoon. The largest house on the single street which passed through the village, leading south from Colchester and terminating at the small dock where a single barge now lay at anchor, it had a bright hard look entirely out of keeping with the rest of the village. He never thought there was much to recommend it save good insulation and a garden large enough to lose the children for hours at a stretch, but knew himself blessed: at least one of his peers endured a house which seemed to be sinking into the ground, and in which fungus the size of a man’s hand grew in the upper corners of the dining room.