I've always loved writing short stories. Even when it's only been me reading and enjoying them, when I've entered them in writing competitions and got nowhere, even then I've kept going. There's something ridiculously satisfying about creating your own characters and setting, having an entire drama play out in the space of 4,000 or so words, bringing everything to a neat - or sometimes not so neat - conclusion.
A while ago I self published a collection of stories via Amazon, mainly for - I'm vain enough to admit - the pleasure of seeing my own name on a book, even if only a self published one. So I thought, in addition to my Wednesday craft book reviews, I'd make Saturday a short story day, when I select one and put it on this blog. To begin, let's go with the story I named my collection after, 'The House on Steep Street'. Why Elfret Finch came into my mind, I don't know. Sometimes characters take a while to show themselves. Other times they pop into your head and that's it, they're fully formed and it's as if they always existed. Tarkham is loosely, with artistic licence, based on the city of York, and it's a setting I feel I could return to in other stories. Okay, I hope you enjoy this, and if you do please consider buying my book on Amazon and leaving me a review. It'd mean the world to me. If funds don't allow you to make any impulse buys right now, then feel free to leave a comment below if you enjoy reading it. Thanks.
P.S. I'd have included a link to send you directly to the web page where my book's listed, but my technical skills aren't up to it! Defeated by modern technology yet again, huh? Just head to that company named after a big river and put the book title in the search field. Oh, go on! You know you want to!
THE HOUSE ON STEEP STREET
The early morning mist rolled and folded across All Floods meadow before smoothing out like a fine linen sheet. It made its way across the Tark, obscuring muddy river banks and slate grey water, curling about Tarkham’s thick stone walls. The mist tentatively entered the medieval archway of Northgate before snaking and winding about the alleys and narrow ginnels known locally as snickelways. Within the confines of the city walls Tudor merchant houses jammed up against shabby offices of insurance clerks and lawyers, against tobacconists and booksellers, bonnet makers and an alley corner where a stall purveyed oysters and mussels. Some snickelways were barely wide enough for two people to pass comfortably. Upper storeys of buildings protruded over them as if about to topple. Above a bootmakers hung a large metallic boot that swung in a strong breeze, the ironwork hinges creaking like ship’s timbers. A bronze coloured key hung above the locksmiths while over a haberdashery was a needle with a gaping eye.
Strangers were bewildered by the claustrophobic maze of snickelways that suddenly fell away as Tarkham Minster loomed into view. The cathedral was a reassuring, yet forbidding presence in the lives of those who measured their days by its rituals. Their pennies dropped into its collection plates and their voices in song rose up toward the minster’s painted ceiling.
If some were confused by the snickelways, they were as familiar to Elfret Finch as the sky above. She liked walking along them at dawn while Tarkham slept, doors bolted shut, blackened ranges and fireplaces unlit. When all was still. At least that’s how it appeared to eyes other than Elfret’s. Girls from the Finch family were long thought to see things that oughtn’t be seen. Finch girls were said to hear things too. Voices the ferrymen might only half-hear after dusk on All Hallows Eve.
On a bleak January morning, when mist hung in the air, Elfret walked along Papist’s Lane before turning into Candlemas Row. She was a small, slight girl wrapped in a shawl that covered her thin shoulders and the bodice of her calico dress. Elfret was a solitary figure, moving with quiet purpose. She seemed unremarkable, but in that moment Elfret was accompanied by not one but two companions who’d long since ceased to breathe. In Papist’s Lane it was the custom of a chorister who’d last sang during Edward I’s reign to accompany Elfret. They were joined by a wan tailor’s apprentice who moaned softly of a love he once lost. They drifted away, replaced by a Guildsman’s widow who said nothing of her sorrow, but clicked her rosary beads in prayer. From bedchambers and attics Elfret glimpsed faces pressed against the glass. Maids beaten by unkind mistresses or ill used by masters. Hatters succumbed to madness from the mercury used in their trade. On doorsteps, she saw ragged orphans who tended foundlings bundled up in torn blankets.
Any walk that Elfret took through Tarkham was spent listening to what was beyond the senses of others. The rustle of tattered silk skirts worn by the fallen women who’d lived above The White Lamb decades ago. The insistent coughing of consumptives who’d occupied a floor of the sea captain’s dwelling. Elfret’s footsteps kept rhythm with the pocket watches of long deceased doctors that ticked the seconds away. She rounded a corner, stepping by a pair of Civil War soldiers who clashed swords while nearby two black clad apothecaries compared remedies. All seen only by Elfret Finch’s eyes. Heard only by her ears.
Elfret was used to her singular nature. She cared little for friends of the same age and knew hers to be an old soul that would go through life without a husband or a home to call her own. On that particular January morning Elfret headed toward the house at the corner of Steep Street, its frontage to the street, the rear of the building facing Tarkham Minister.
She knocked on the front door, paying no heed to the flurry of whispers from inside, knowing they came from spirits rather than the house’s newest residents. The door eased open as a woman still in her nightgown and her hair unbrushed asked,
“You’re the hired girl, Finch?”
Elfret nodded.
“Yes, madam.”
“It’s Mrs Alder. Come inside, won’t you?”
Inside were tea chests and trunks, stacks of blankets and wooden crates filled with a china dinner service wrapped in crumpled brown paper.
“You’re early.”
“Yes, madam. Mrs Alder.”
“Never mind.” The woman looked exasperated. “I’m all at sixes and sevens, as you can see.” She picked up a pile of pillowcases before putting them back down. “Come through. I’ll make tea.”
Elfret followed Mrs Alder along the hallway and through a door. Three steps led into a kitchen with a stone flagged floor and a pine table topped with copper pans, table linen and a trio of soup tureens. Mrs Alder stared at them as if confounded by the mess and unable to account for it.
“I’ve two maids gone home due to influenza,” she said, “and a cook who’s nursing her mother after a fall. None of which could’ve happened at a worst time.” She unearthed a teapot from a basket. “I’ll need you for a few days. Perhaps a week, I don’t know. Until I can deal with my servant problem.”
Elfret remained quiet. She didn’t need to say anything. Mrs Alder spilled out words as if she wasn’t used to being listened to and was snatching at the chance to have her say.
“We moved in yesterday.” Mrs Alder spooned tealeaves into a fat bellied pot. “Far earlier than we were meant to, and my husband’s called away on business.” She found cups burrowed in the same basket the teapot had nestled in. “I was assured the house would be swept and dusted. But look! Cobwebs in every corner.”
Elfret accepted the tea offered to her, which was weak and pale. Mrs Alder would’ve been pale herself if not for the bright flush of colour in her cheeks. She’d a feverish look that spoke of broken sleep and a nervous disposition. There was a weighty book on the table, bound in bottle green, the title picked out in gold lettering. ‘McKendry’s Book of Household Management’. Mrs Alder noticed Elfret’s gaze rest on it. “A wedding gift to help me run an efficient household. Have you ever read such books?”
“I don’t read, madam.”
“You can’t read?”
“I can,” Elfret said, “but I don’t. I’ve enough to fill my days.”
From a room beyond the kitchen she heard a lady singing a Creole lullaby to a baby taken by cholera, and the whispers of mourners at an old man’s funeral, his coffin having remained in the house for two days and nights. Elfret saw the shadow of a sleek black cat, someone’s constant companion, and the bones of mice it’d once caught and laid at their feet in soft grey lines. She listened as Mrs Alder explained they’d have to carry the Turkish rug into the parlour together as it was too heavy for one person to lift. Elfret was to wash windows and clean out fireplaces, stacking them with coal and wood, making them ready to be lit, then tackle the cobwebs. There was broom she could use, and mops and pails somewhere. Oh, and that leather-bound case was Mr Alder’s. The papers inside weren’t to be disturbed. Mr Alder didn’t like anything of his to be disturbed. He was most particular, she said.
The pair of them worked hard, stopping at midday when the minster bells chimed twelve for bread and a bowl of broth. Mrs Alder kept up the stream of chatter. The word husband, Elfret realised, was still a novelty to Mrs Alder who used it frequently. ‘My husband works in shipping. He deals with inventories of goods bought into the docks over at Breakneck Yard. Sometimes the docks at Tinburry’. ‘My husband’s a learned man. It’s a professional occupation of some standing.’ Elfret could hear the man’s words coming out of his wife’s mouth. The phrases he must’ve spoken. ‘Sugar, coffee, exotic spices. The goods of the world are carried on those ships, and he – my husband – has an important role in ensuring goods aren’t pilfered by light fingered hands.’ Elfret’s own hands, with their reddened knuckles and rough palms, swept ash out of a grate while Mrs Alder, having donned a printed cotton dress and pinned up her hair, neatly folded linen napkins into squares.
When the minster clock sounded six o’clock Mrs Alder sank into a chair, exhaling deeply.
“That’s all we can do for now. You’ll be back tomorrow?”
“Yes, madam.”
As she opened the door onto Steep Street Mrs Alder looked warily at the gloomy snickelway. “I wouldn’t care to walk alone after dark. The streets, these houses, everything’s close by. All forced up against the other and hardly room to breathe.” She glanced up at the blank windows of the building opposite. No light shone from them. “How can there be so many people, but so little noise? It’s quiet as the grave.”
“It’ll be busy on market days,” Elfret assured her. “You’ll hardly be able to move for bodies.”
Mrs Alder gave a brief smile.
“Goodnight, Finch.”
“Goodnight, Mrs Alder.”
Three days passed while Elfret and Mrs Alder cleaned the house and set it to rights. They were joined by a scullery maid and a temporary cook who arrived bearing a letter from Mr Alder. Elfret thought Mrs Alder disappointed to be denied a chance to hire servants of her own choosing. ‘My husband arranged it with Marion. Mrs Harwarden. She’s a lady of his – our – acquaintance who’s known my husband for years.’ Mrs Alder’s fingers held the letter tightly, crumpling the paper before smoothing it out again. ‘Her late husband worked with Michael, that’s my husband. They were colleagues. After Mr Harwarden passed away my husband was kind enough to befriend Marion. Mrs Harwarden.’
Elfret observed the newly acquired scullery maid and cook, thinking them a poor choice. They were coarse and sullen mouthed, and she felt as if a sour smell emanated from them, the same smell given off by those who’d died with their neck in a noose or by the executioner’s blade. Elfret thought she might no longer be needed, but Mrs Alder wanted her company. Her colour, Elfret thought, had improved. Mrs Alder was sprightlier than she’d been on that first morning. The feverish look was gone.
It was on the fifth day, mid-afternoon, when circumstances altered. Michael Alder arrived at the house in Steep Street, tired and bad tempered from his journey. Elfret stood on the first-floor landing and looked down into the stairwell, seeing him and Mrs Alder below. They did not, she thought, greet one another as a newly wedded couple might be expected to do. His kiss on her cheek was perfunctory, and Mrs Alder grew flustered which irritated him. ‘For goodness sake, Cecilia!’ Elfret felt a coldness surround Mr Alder, as if he’d bought an ill wind in with him. When he passed Elfret on the stairs he looked through her as if she’d no more substance than a shadow.
The following day the scullery maid answered the door.
“She’s sickly,” the maid said, jerking her head toward the upper floor. “Can’t keep anything down.” The head, with its grubby cap, nodded toward the room Mrs Alder had called her husband’s study. “He’s an errand for you.”
Elfret was shown into Michael Alder’s presence. Again she felt the chilled air around him, despite a crackling fire which he stood with his back against. Mr Alder pushed an envelope into Elfret’s hand and a coin.
“You’ll arrange delivery of this. See that it’s sent.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get about it then. I can’t abide dawdlers.”
“Yes, sir.”
Elfret waited until she was out of his sight to read the envelope’s address. Mrs Marion Harwarden, The Grange, Fairhampton. Elfret heard the rustle of tattered silk and knew one of the fallen women from above The White Lamb was looking over her shoulder, both of them considering what might be written inside.
Elfret didn’t see Mrs Alder until the next day when she again had a feverish light.
“I must’ve caught a chill, or perhaps it was something I’ve eaten.” She managed a small piece of bread and sips of warm milk, sitting in the parlour with a shawl draped about her shoulders. “Do you sew, Finch?”
“Yes,” Elfret said. “Nothing fancy, but a good, plain stitch.”
“Perhaps you’d do some mending and sit with me for a while,” Mrs Alder said. Footsteps clattered heavily on the stairs and Elfret watched Mrs Alder stiffen as her eyes flitted toward the parlour door. Michael Alder, shrugging on his jacket, stood in the doorway.
“Cecilia, you’re looking better.”
She is not, Elfret thought. A lad, barely ten years of age when he’d slipped and cracked open his head on the minster’s floor, sat at Mrs Alder’s feet. He faded away as Michael Alder consulted the mantelpiece clock.
“I’ve business to attend to.” He briefly touched his wife’s cheek with his fingertips. “There, I said you didn’t need a doctor. The fuss they make. It’s only to inflate their fees.”
He left, slamming the front door with a carelessness that set the window frames rattling. Mrs Alder closed her eyes with a soft sigh. She didn’t move far from the armchair all day.
After that the pattern of their days seemed set. Elfret darned socks and turned collars while Mrs Alder dozed in her armchair or idly leafed through a book. Her health didn’t improve, and while Mr Alder spoke of his wife merely being run-down, needing rest not a physician, Elfret knew all was not right. Mrs Alder struggled to keep food down and was plagued with a weariness that reduced her to tears. Elfret did what she could, offering to fetch a herbal tonic from the shop near Northgate.
“That’s kind,” Mrs Alder said, “but my husband bought something for me. I take a teaspoon of it before bed.” She wrinkled her nose. “It tastes foul, but doesn’t all medicine?”
Elfret was further disquieted by Mr Alder, outside of his wife’s presence, asking her to see two more letters to Mrs Harwarden were delivered. Shortly afterwards a reply came, and Michael Alder spoke of it to his wife.
“Marion’s very concerned for your health, Cecilia.”
Elfret heard a low murmur, then a flurry of whispers. She knew unseen eyes watched Michael Alder as intently as she. Mainly women, Elfret thought, hearing their distrust of the slyness in his eyes. A maid who’d seen that look as her employer crept into her draughty attic room under cover of night. The discarded mistress who’d believed the honeyed promises of a married man who’d seduced her.
“Marion’s offered to come and stay. She’ll nurse you back to health, my dear.”
“But – “ Mrs Alder looked toward Elfret. “I’ve Finch to help me. She’s been a Godsend.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Cecilia. Don’t be awkward. You know how it grates with me. Marion will have you back on your feet and this household running like clockwork before you know it.”
“This household?” Mrs Alder shook her head. “I’ve managed well so far.”
“You’re fragile, my dear,” he insisted. “Delicate. Why not rest and allow Marion to take charge? You won’t have to lift a finger. It’ll give her occupation too. A widow’s life can be a lonely one.”
He gave a cold, confident smile. It was all agreed.
Mrs Alder made Elfret promise she’d keep working at the house. ‘I’ve coins of my own,’ she confided. ‘Some pin money Michael gave me. It’ll be between us.’ Elfret stayed by Mrs Alder’s side from early morning to late evening, walking home along the snickelways by moonlight. She was with Mrs Alder in the parlour when Mrs Harwarden arrived.
Marion Harwarden was a tall, robust woman, handsome rather than pretty. Her clothes were plain but of good quality. She took a seat, her eyes keenly roaming across the parlour’s pictures and furniture as if taking an inventory. There was a vigour about her that Mrs Alder lacked, and Elfret felt Mr Alder’s suppressed excitement about the guest’s arrival. None of them paid attention to Elfret, which suited her. From four corners of the room came murmurs of disquiet. The concerned faces of long-gone choristers peered in through the Steep Street window before rejoining the snaking line of boys making for Tarkham Minster.
“I expect you’ve overexerted yourself,” Marion Harwarden said. “Husbands do underestimate how taxing it is to run a home, especially for a new bride. So many things to consider.” She leant forward, patting Mrs Alder’s hand. “Let me take this burden off your shoulders until you’re well enough to cope. I’ve plenty of experience dealing with such matters.”
“Marion’s a loss to the commercial world,” Michael Alder said jovially. “She would’ve made a fine office manager.”
“Michael, you flatter me! My skills are purely in the domestic realm. That’s as it should be, isn’t it, Cecilia?”
“I suppose so, but really, I’m only a little under the weather. Perhaps it’s living so close to the river. The damp air,” Mrs Alder said. “I’ll get used to it soon enough. Please, Marion, don’t feel obliged to stay. I’ll be right as rain before you know it.”
“I won’t hear of it,” Mrs Harwarden said.
“Don’t be unreasonable, my dear,” Michael Alder said. “Marion’s only trying to help.”
“I know, but – “
“Enough.” He noticed Elfret. “Isn’t there work in the kitchen?”
Elfret felt Mrs Harwarden’s eyes settle on her as Mrs Alder said,
“Finch helps with the mending. She’s company for me.”
“But you have me for company now,” Mrs Harwarden said. “Finch, is it? I’m sure we can find something better for you to do. Off you go. See if there are vegetables to peel or a floor to scrub.”
Elfret looked toward Mrs Alder, whose face was downcast. She left the room, the unquiet spirits trailing after her. At the end of the working day Mrs Harwarden dropped some small coins into Elfret’s hand.
“That’s what you’re owed. I won’t be needing you again.”
Elfret met Marion Harwarden’s steady gaze.
“Will Mrs Alder be needing me again?”
“No.” The word was spoken firmly, the front door held open for Elfret to leave. Mrs Harwarden grimaced at the darkening snickelway. “Why anyone would live in this rat’s nest of alleys is beyond me.” She regarded the cobbles underfoot, saying with grim satisfaction, “They can’t be easy to walk on when the light’s gone. Be careful, Finch. You wouldn’t want to slip.”
“I’m surefooted,” Elfret said. “I shan’t fall. I trust you’ll not slip yourself, madam.”
She walked away, hearing the door slam behind her, the sound reverberating along the length of Steep Street and echoing in the coal cellars below.
The river mist was thicker than usual for days afterwards. Elfret took her place in a recessed doorway opposite the Steep Street house. From there she observed the comings and goings of the living and dead. Mr Alder arrived and left bearing bundles of papers. The scullery maid, her sleeves rolled up, bought out a pail of water and scrubbed the front step each morning. Occasionally Marion Harwarden left the house, a wicker basket looped over her arm. She returned with packets of tea or condiments. There was no sign of Mrs Alder. Those who loitered alongside Elfret, the street urchins whom hunger had weakened and severe chills done for, noticed how no doctor paid a visit or any person that Mrs Alder might look upon as a friend.
Days passed, then on Sunday evening a shout came from within the house, a clatter like the sound of something heavy having fallen, then silence. Elfret shuddered. Those around her dispersed into the dusky air. She drew her shawl more closely about her and walked swiftly along the snickelway, turning into Papist’s Lane, almost breaking into a trot, her heartbeat quickening. Elfret knew what’d happened as surely as if she’d witnessed it. A push. A body tumbling downstairs, lying crumpled on the floor. The woman at the top of the stairwell putting her hand to her mouth, astonished by what she’d done. What she’d felt compelled to do.
Elfret rounded a corner, hearing the bootmakers sign swinging above, the ironwork hinges creaking and wincing with each tiny movement. She saw Northgate ahead and the glint of the river beyond, the mist clearing enough for her to see it. Elfret saw the spectral figure standing at the threshold of Northgate, face coldly furious about the manner of her death. Elfret Finch acknowledged the woman as she passed by.
“Goodnight, madam.”
Marion Harwarden, her neck broken in the fall, did not reply.
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