Chapter 12

‘What?’ Lady Susannah demanded.

‘Someone tried to kill you!’ Lizzie said, horrified. ‘A man with a big sharp sword. He was standing over you and laughing. How did you escape? Did the police catch him?’

This wasn’t filling in missing pieces of the puzzle. This was just making the puzzle even more baffling. Who would want to kill Lady Susannah? Lizzie could understand stealing from her – the jet was worth a fortune – but murder? Possibilities raced through her mind. Maybe the Maharaja had enemies who would never let him marry an English woman. Or maybe a group of assassins had come over from India, wanting revenge on him and his family?

Lady Susannah snatched her hand away. ‘Those unpleasant incidents are in the past,’ she said, as if Lizzie had done something stupid. ‘I believe I asked you to tell me about my future?’

‘Sorry,’ Lizzie mumbled. ‘I’ll do me best.’

She took Lady Susannah’s hand again. Straightaway, a vision stood out in her mind. It was bright and perfectly clear, which told Lizzie it was the future she was seeing. But the vision was even worse than the last.

‘Do you see my wedding day?’ Lady Susannah asked eagerly. ‘What time of year is it? Are there leaves on the trees? Hurry up, I want to know.’

But what Lizzie saw was no wedding. Lady Susannah, her hair in disarray, was wearing a dirty, ripped grey dress and her hands were bound behind her back. She was weeping and struggling to escape from her bonds. ‘Please don’t kill me,’ she pleaded to her unseen captor.

‘Someone’s going to try to murder you,’ Lizzie gasped.

‘Didn’t I tell you not to look at the past?’

‘It’s not the past! You were all dirty and ragged. I saw your hands – there wasn’t a wedding ring on your finger. You’re not going to get married, you’re going to get killed!’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Lady Susannah slammed her hand down on the table, rattling the crystal balls. ‘Do I look like a schoolgirl? You and your little friends may enjoy titillating one another with penny-dreadful tales of blood and gore, but the rest of us have outgrown such stuff. What a cruel, juvenile prank!’

‘But that’s what I saw! I’m sorry, but he ain’t never going to marry you, and—’

‘Adamant, are we? Very well. I see I shall have to have words with your employer about this.’ She stormed out of the tent, leaving Lizzie with the mental image of her weeping and struggling.

‘But your life’s in danger, yer ladyship!’ Lizzie protested. It was no good. She was already gone – and by the look of it, any customers who were still waiting had taken off too. Of course; they wouldn’t want to risk having a reading with the Magnificent Lizzie Brown if Lady Susannah didn’t approve.

Lizzie sat, her stomach churning with nerves, and wondered what she should do. Clearly, some danger from her past had returned to stalk Lady Susannah in the present. Someone, possibly the same person who wanted to hurt the Maharaja, meant to kill her. And they would strike soon.

The more she thought about it, the more Lizzie realized she hadn’t broken the news to Lady Susannah very politely. ‘“You were all dirty and ragged,”’ she muttered to herself. ‘Just the sort of thing a lady wants to hear. Flippin’ heck.’ Perhaps she should have just said her life was in danger, and then added the details if she’d been pressed for them.

She should apologize. Lizzie rushed out into the crowd, trying to see where Lady Susannah had gone. There was no sign of her.

She knocked on the Sullivans’ caravan door. It was a little ajar, so she opened it the rest of the way and popped her head round. ‘Almost show time!’

The girls were sprawled on the floor. Lizzie saw the caravan’s bellybox was open and the sewing kit was out. Before she could see what they’d been working on, Erin slammed the bellybox lid down. ‘Have you not got customers waiting?’ she said in surprise.

‘All done. I’m free as a bird.’

Lizzie looked at the twins, and the twins looked at Lizzie. ‘All right, then,’ she said at length. ‘Own up. What are you making in here? And don’t say “nothing”, because I saw you!’

Nora and Erin exchanged glances. ‘You mustn’t tell, OK?’ Nora said.

‘Cross me heart.’

‘We’re sewing new costumes,’ Nora whispered. ‘But we’ve got a custom in the family. A bit like wedding dresses, you know? You can’t see them until they’re finished. Nobody can. Otherwise…’

‘Otherwise it’s bad luck and the costume’s ruined and you can’t ever wear it and you have to burn it on a big fire,’ Erin finished in a rush.

Lizzie shrugged. ‘Could have just said so in the first place. Dunno why you and your ma had to be so ruddy secretive.’

‘Ah well, families, y’know?’ Erin grinned weakly. ‘Hey! Speaking of our ma, you’ll never guess what we found at the bottom of the bellybox.’

Nora produced a huge book as thick as a family Bible, with bits of paper poking out from between the leaves. ‘It’s her old scrapbook!’

‘This goes back to before any of us were born,’ Erin said proudly. ‘Ma travelled with loads of circuses before Fitzy’s. She kept souvenirs from all of them.’

The book was crammed with old handbills and crackly folded posters, the colours still bright. In between, newspaper clippings had been pasted. Lizzie sat with the book on her lap and leafed through it eagerly. Nora and Erin sat on either side, pointing at the headlines and the pictures.

‘That’s Princess Caraboo!’ Erin said. ‘She was one of Ma’s friends. She wasn’t really a foreign princess, she was just a servant girl, but she fooled all the toffs.’

‘Look at this lot!’ Lizzie said. ‘Samson, the world’s strongest man. Thundering Cloud, the Indian chief, and his Tomahawks of Peril. Mister Marvel, the conjuror king, assisted by the mysterious Scheherazade. Here he is again – Mister Marvel, the Modern Merlin.’

The engraving showed a man in a Chinese silk hat, with a long moustache and a pigtail. He held a dove perched on his outstretched finger, as if he’d just produced it from thin air. ‘The mysterious Scheherazade’ looked on in a spangled mask, holding up her hands in what Lizzie thought was meant to be astonishment.

‘Was he really Chinese?’ Lizzie wondered.

Nora laughed. ‘Of course not. It was all just an act. Ma said he was a handsome young chap under the make-up, though.’

‘There’s Ma!’ Erin pointed at an engraving of a young woman in a fringed buckskin jacket, firing pistols from the back of a pony. ‘“Desperate Deborah of Dublin, the Irish Hell-Cat!”’

‘Blimey,’ Lizzie said.

‘Pa always said she was a wild one,’ Nora said with a grin. ‘Bet you never knew she was that wild, eh?’

As she headed back to her caravan, Lizzie caught sight of Lady Susannah striding angrily towards her with Fitzy in tow. There was no chance of ducking away and hiding. She’d been seen.

‘There she is!’ Lady Susannah marched up and jabbed a finger at her. ‘I warned you I’d speak to your employer, girl, and that was no idle threat!’

Lizzie braced herself. She knew she ought to apologize, but she hated the thought of saying sorry when she’d done nothing wrong.

‘Lizzie, we need to sort this out,’ Fitzy said, while Lady Susannah folded her arms and glared at her. ‘Her ladyship is quite upset.’

‘You should have heard her,’ the lady said. ‘Making up the most outrageous stories just to see the frightened look on my face. I don’t call that harmless entertainment, do you?’

‘Well, Lizzie? What’s your side of the story?’

‘I weren’t trying to scare her, I promise!’ Lizzie protested. ‘I saw danger in her future, and I was trying to warn her.’

‘I see.’ Fitzy tapped the side of his nose, thinking. ‘I’m sure you meant well, but you can understand why she’d be upset, can’t you?’

‘I s’pose,’ Lizzie admitted. Lady Susannah’s stubborn refusal to take her seriously was giving her a headache. It wasn’t Lizzie’s fault if the warning scared her. The silly woman’s life was being threatened. What was Lizzie supposed to do? Spell it out with flowers?

Fitzy was already ushering Lady Susannah away. ‘Palm-reading is not an exact science. Sometimes one is told things that are symbolic, not literally true.’

‘Symbolic?’ the lady said, taking his arm.

‘Like in a dream. If you dream of an angry dog, it doesn’t actually mean anything to do with a dog…’

Lizzie watched, smouldering, as Fitzy led Lady Susannah towards the penny gaffs. He probably thought a visit to the Lobster Boy and the Bearded Woman would take her mind off the scary reading she’d had.

‘I ain’t a liar,’ she muttered, clenching her teeth. ‘And what I saw weren’t symbolic, either.’

Yes, that was what galled her the most. It wasn’t Lady Susannah’s shock and anger. It was the accusation of lying. If Lady Susannah only knew the trouble Lizzie took to tell people the truth, instead of the comforting lies they wanted to hear…

She marched into her caravan and slammed the door. She thought of Lady Susannah’s flushed, angry face. Then she remembered the sight of her in the vision, as she pleaded for mercy. Sobbing, her mouth twisted in agony … it was frightening, all right.

‘I’ve got to help her,’ Lizzie whispered. ‘Or she’ll end up dead. And I’d never forgive meself.’ She punched her mattress. ‘But how can I help someone who just won’t listen?’