Helen jerked awake at the blast of the whistle, the sound of doors slamming vibrating loudly through the train. She blinked and raised her head sleepily to look out of the window, swaying in her seat as the train began to chug forward on the rails again. Elsie shifted and twisted her head against her neck, her breath warm and damp against Helen's neck.
"Taunton, love, we'll be next" Mrs Venner told her softly and Helen turned to her with a small smile.
They were travelling west again, as they had done so often before and Helen admitted she was looking forward to the country. She had not visited the house in Holbiton since before her tour of the continent and things were very different then. In truth, she had come to escape the city and the incessant quarrelling with her father. He seemed to be becoming more obsessive about his work, disappearing for days even weeks at a time with no word, holding secretive meetings with strangers in the small hours. The whole house was aware of the strange rooms under the house but even Mr Venner was forbidden from entering and whenever Helen questioned her father about it, he dismissed her and changed the subject. She grew weary of his apparent disinterest and lack of support for her studies and when Mrs Venner had expressed a desire to visit her relatives, "a folly of old age" she had called it, the opportunity for an escape was too powerful to resist.
Old Mr Venner snorted loudly and sat upright suddenly, staring ahead wide eyed like somnambulist until he came back to himself and settled against the seat. "Are we there yet Mrs Venner?" he asked gruffly and Helen smiled at their persistent formality, even after all these years.
The coach journey to the house was as long and uncomfortable as ever and Helen and Michael spent a good part of it discussing the planned extension of the railway southward towards Plymouth while Elsie rolled her eyes at them and stared out of the window at the dawn. The carriage pulled up in front of her grandfather's house, although the old man was long since dead and they were met instead by Helen's ageing aunt. There were some times that Elsie did not envy Helen's upbringing and this was one of them. She happily trailed up the stairs behind the old folk and collapsed on her creaky bed in the attic while Helen endured stilted conversation and horrid, dishwater tea in the parlour. She was roused some time later by Helen's tired smile looming above her. "Let me help you get changed," Else murmured sleepily, pushing up on her arms but Helen stilled her with a hand to the shoulder.
"I just wanted to say goodnight," Helen whispered, planting a soft kiss on her lips before slipping away.
"I got another one!" Michael's voice drifted across the beach and Helen raised her head to see him waving a razor clam at her, his feet in two inches of water and his trousers rolled up about his calves. She watched him stuff it into his net bag and crouch down to drop salt into another burrow in the wet sand.
"Is that why we say happy as a sandboy?" Elsie asked, pushing up on her elbows to watch him.
"I'm sick of clams," Helen admitted lying back against the rock and staring at the the sky. Elsie smiled.
"However could you get sick of clams? They're wonderful," she replied, rolling over to poke at an anemone with a twig, it's long tendrils curling up to form a hard red knot against the side of the shallow pool in the rock. "Oh look, there's a little fish in here!"
Helen peered down as Elsie gingerly lifted a piece of seaweed with her twig to reveal a tiny, silver creature cowering underneath.
"Come on girls, we've got a right good feast 'ere" Michael told them, climbing barefoot up the rock towards them.
"Oh joy of joys, clams again," Helen drawled and Michael shrugged, his face in shadow from the bright sun behind.
"Could tek 'em up old man Roe's and see if 'e'll swap 'em for some scrumpy if yer like?"
"Honestly, Mick are you trying to sound like a farmer?" Elsie teased and he flicked his soggy bag of clams at her.
"Hush up you!" he retorted and Helen laughed, sliding down the rock and picking her boots up out of the sand.
Michael powered up the hill ahead of them but Elsie really didn't mind. She kept stopping to pick greengages out of the hedge, slipping her hand into Helen's as Michael disappeared over the brow. Helen squeezed her fingers and flicked a bright pink bud of Valerian that stuck out of the old stone wall up the lane.
"Oh my that is a sight," Elsie sighed as they turned the corner. The crumbling old wall was covered in bundles of pink and purple and white, bright stalks of Valerian sprouting out of every possible crevice. Dozens of butterflies flitted about the flowers and the two women stood for a long moment watching in silence. "Oh ain't they dainty?" Elsie cooed stepping nearer. "Not so pretty up close though are they? They've got that horrible tongue, eurgh!"
Helen laughed. "Even pretty things have their ugly side," she replied. "I think they're fascinating. Did you know that sometimes wasps will bury their larvae inside a butterfly's chrysalis while it's changing and the creature that comes out it like some grisly monster from a horror story, part butterfly part wasp?"
"Oh that's horrible, why did you have to tell me that?" Elsie chided and Helen chuckled.
"Sorry, I can't help it. It's just how I see things."
"Well I don't need to know, I can just appreciate it how God intended it."
"You think God intended for wasps to bury their larvae into caterpillars and eat them from the inside out?" Helen mocked. "Not any sort of God I want anything to do with."
"Helen! How could you say such a thing?" Elsie turned to her with a look of shock.
"What? That I don't believe in God?" She shrugged. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't, I'm not certain of anything as lofty as that."
"Oh you make my head ache when you get like this," Elsie teased and Helen's smiled broadened as she wrapped her arms about Elsie's waist and kissed the devil out of her under the Valerian buds.
When they reached the house sometime later, Mrs Venner was standing at the gate, leaning heavily on the iron railing and breathing hard. There was a bicycle propped against the wall and a little way behind her stood a young man in a Post Office uniform, anxiously smoothing his hair down.
"There's a telegram come for you, Miss Helen," Mrs Venner told her sharply and she turned to glare at Elsie sourly before turning away down the garden path. "Come on with you now girl," she snapped and Helen and Elsie exchanged a look before she followed her mother into the house, passing Michael as he wandered down to join Helen in curiosity at their visitor.
"Whatever is the matter, mother?" Elsie asked as they walked through the back door into the kitchen.
"The matter?" Mrs Venner said, her face screwing up. Elsie stepped forward to clutch at her arm and Mrs Venner brushed it away abruptly.
"Oh for my shame, Lord whatever did I do wrong? All my sins come back to haunt me now that I should have to endure this!" she exclaimed, sinking backward onto a chair and twisting her dress in her hand.
"Mother?"
"We seen yer child, you wicked thing, in the lane! Oh my lord, with the man from the Post Office and we seen yer kissing!"
Elsie's eyes grew wide and her mouth went dry. Her heart thumped sickeningly in her chest and she turned to stare through the open door at where Helen stood by the gate.
"We didn't mean no harm by it mother, it were just a kiss!" Elsie babbled anxiously and her mother shook her head furiously from side to side.
"Disgusting it is! And all this time and I should have known it! Cuddling up like you do, you base, vile pair!"
"No mother," Elsie sobbed stepping closer and taking her mother by the arms. "It's not like that!"
"Oh get away from me you, wicked creature. I'll not have it!"
Michael came clattering through the door, wide eyes and brimming with excitement.
"It's from the college! They want to meet with her!" he beamed, pressing his palms against the door frame and grinning like an idiot. "Have we a pen? She wants to send a reply back straight away!" Mrs Venner wouldn't meet his eyes and Elsie sat frozen, clutching her mother's arms and staring at her face in despair. "Oh, I'll get it myself!" he uttered and barged past them brusquely to dig around in the dresser against the wall.
"Did you hear? Did Micky tell you?" Helen said breathlessly from the door and Elsie sucked on her lip and turned see her glowing face.
"That's wonderful news, miss," she said, her eyes watering.
"Whatever's wrong?" Helen asked in a concerned tone, putting her arm on Elsie's shoulder. Elsie sniffed and shook her head.
"I'm just happy for you," she lied and Helen heaved an excited breath and grinned before Michael hustled her back outside.
Helen was eager to return to London after the telegram but even in her excitement could not miss the black mood that had overcome the household. Mrs Venner had not accompanied them to the station.
"She's well enough, just old," Michael had told her as they said they're farewells on the busy concourse beside the carriage. "Never you mind about that now, anyway. You've got bigger fish to fry!" Helen squeezed his arm fondly and smiled as he dramatically waved his hat from the platform as the trained pulled away. Elsie remained worryingly mute for the journey, staying stiff in Helen's arms as she tried to embrace her.
"I'm sorry, I just...I don't feel well," Elsie had explained mournfully and Helen swallowed back the twisting anxiety in her gut.
The return to London was less joyous than Helen had hoped and the feeling the house grew cold and tense as she quarrelled again with her father, irked by his disinterest in her upcoming meeting at the College. There were more strange visitors and the old doctor continued to hide away in the dark rooms under the house. Elsie strained to hear the raised voices from his study as she furrowed in a cabinet down the hall. That was the night that Gregory took Helen downstairs for the first time.
"Are you sure you're quite well?" she asked as she slipped Helen's dressing gown around her arms and Helen stared absently into the distance. "Helen?" she asked again with a gentle squeeze to her shoulders.
"Hmm, I'm sorry, I'm...very tired," Helen told her and Elsie sucked on her lower lip and nodded, staring at the dark circles under Helen's eyes.
"Shall I stay?" Elsie said in a meek tone as Helen rose from her seat at the dressing table.
"If you like," Helen replied but her tone was indifferent and Elsie could not have felt chillier under the sheets with her than if she had been alone in her own bed.
"I'm not coming," Helen had stated flatly a few days later, rifling through a box of letters on her father's desk as Elsie stood in the doorway in her Sunday best.
"You never come no more, people are talking," Elsie told her anxiously.
"People always talk and I don't care for their chatter," Helen said snappishly. "I've other more pressing things to do today than sit for an hour in a freezing pew hearing about all the ways I'm damned!"
Elsie's face screwed up. "Oh don't, I hate it when you get like this!" she sobbed. Helen let out a slow sigh and let her shoulders slouch.
"I'm sorry," she replied softly, putting the lid on the box and walking slowly to the door with a letter clutched in her hand. Helen smiled at her softly and squeezed her gently by the shoulders. "You go, say a little prayer for me," she said with a gleam in her eye and pecked Elsie lightly on the cheek before walking out of the room. Elsie sat frozen in the back of the church that day, staring beyond the rampaging minister at the mournful expression on the wooden face nailed to the cross on the wall behind.
The next morning the postman arrived with a letter in her brother's terrible scrawl. Elsie smiled and turned it over in her fingers as she walked down the hall to the kitchen, gleefully tearing open the envelope as she waited for the water to boil. She sank down in a chair beside the range as she read it and was still there hours later when Helen finally found her, staring at the wall with a blank look.
"Whatever are you doing? Why are there no lights on?" Helen asked in an irritated tone as she stepped into the chilly room. "The fire's gone out, Elsie! Elsie? What's wrong?" Elsie blinked and started in her seat, turning to meet Helen's concerned gaze and taking a loud, sobbing breath.
"Oh she's dead!" she cried. "She died! Oh mother!" Helen's mouth gaped and tears pricked at her eyes, falling to her knees as Elsie buried her face in her shoulder and wept and wept. Helen pressed her nose into her hair and ran her hands up and down Elsie's back as she held her, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Michael returned to London without his father and embraced his sister tenderly at the servant's entrance at the side of the house. Helen stood sadly in the hallway behind and Michael met her sad stare softly. If he noticed the chilly atmosphere in the house he did not remark on it, stoically carrying out his duties, the epitome of silent strength. When Helen received the letter from Somerville College he smiled at her warmly and squeezed her arm.
"That's it miss, you're on your way now!" he told her and Helen's eyes crinkled at the corners as she clutched the letter tightly to her chest. Elsie, however, was less enthusiastic.
"Settle now," Michael told her as she slammed a pan angrily into the back of the cupboard in the kitchen.
"Don't tell me to settle, I'm not a child!" she bellowed and Michael ran his hands over his head in despair. "After everything and now she's just up and going, to god knows where!"
"It's only Oxford, it's just a stone's throw on a train, she'll be to and fro' and you know it. The whole world wants to be in London and Miss Helen's no different!" Michael attempted to soothe her. "I don't know why you're in such a dither about it anyway, we always knew she'd be off one day."
"Oh I knew, stupid bloody fool I am too!"
"Elsie!" he cried exasperated stepping closer but she barged away, hoisting the laundry basket on her hip and storming out into the yard, the door clatteringly loudly shut behind her.
Helen found her there later, aggressively pinning linens to the line.
"From the look of that sky I'd say we were having rain," she said, brushing the sleeve of a gentleman's undershirt out of her eyes as it fluttered in the breeze.
"I'll thank you not to instruct me on my work as I don't you and yours," Elsie told her bitterly, stabbing a peg onto the cord in front of her.
"Why are you being this way? I thought you'd be happy for me?" Helen asked in a pleading voice.
"Happy? What do you care for my happiness? I had to hear it second hand, you didn't even have the decency to tell me yourself you was going away!" Elsie said angrily, spinning on her heels to face her.
"You know I care!" Helen exclaimed.
"I don't know anything!" Elsie cried. "I'm just the help! You don't care for me, you don't care for anyone or anything except your precious work! You're cold as ice!" Helen gaped and took a step back, shocked.
"How can you say such a thing?" she said in a choked voice.
"Oh leave me be! Just leave me alone!" Elsie said, flinging her cloth bag of pegs into the laundry basket.
"Elsie!" Helen sobbed, reaching forward to clutch her arm.
"No, don't touch me! Go on to your precious College and leave me be, I don't want to speak to you ever again!" She stormed away and Helen stood amid the billowing clothes, shivering in the chilly wind.
Helen went away to Oxford a month later, her father accompanying her on the train. She smiled at him, a genuine smile of hope and excitement for the future but as they sat in their compartment, steaming through the countryside, she could not deny the anguish that clutched at her heart and stared blankly out of the window as she remembered Elsie's stiff goodbye. Back at the house the maid scrubbed away her heartbreak and endured Michael's gentle mocking as he remarked that the front step had never looked so clean.
"We don't want her to think we've let the place go to the dogs without her now, do we?" she had replied primly, dropping her brush into the bucket as Michael slouched against the portico wall smoking.
"No fear of that with you in charge Elsie Venner," he told her with a smile and she shushed him out of her way as she emptied the soapy water onto the cobbles below.
Some weeks passed and a letter finally arrived in Helen's elegant script and Michael read it to her as she peeled tiny onions for pickling at the kitchen table.
"She says that she is finding the courses most engaging. She shall be home for Christmas on the seventeenth to Paddington and that she should be much obliged for my meeting her at the station. She asks you not to forget to place the order at Fortnum's for the hamper and that if we are having any trouble in catching the old man to settle the accounts to write her and she will expe...expedite it at once." He told her, stopping to rub at the stubbly moustache he was attempting to grow.
"And is she well?" Elsie asked softly, rubbing a small knife against her apron and picking off a piece of onion skin with her nail. Michael tipped his head to one side and pursed his lips.
"She says she is well and that the air is good without the smog of London. She has made the acquaintance of a gentleman named Mr Watson who is also studying medicine and considers that she might invite him to dinner during the holiday. Eh you don't suppose she'll marry 'im do yer?" Michael asked with a broad grin. Elsie clenched her jaw and smiled stiffly, letting to knife drop to the table with a clatter.
"What's that she always said?" Elsie remarked bitterly. "When men talk of the future the gods laugh."
