“Right,” said Mr. Cleat to Tess after dinner that evening as the dessert things were being cleared away, “I didn’t mention the most important thing yet. I’ve prepared you a welcoming gift. Shall we go and take a look at it?”
Tess glanced up at him. Her mostly uneaten pudding still sat on her dish and she put down her spoon. She’d hardly had any dinner but—unlike at Ackerbee’s—nobody had seemed to notice, or care. “Thank you,” she replied, unsure of what else to say. Violet stirred in her hair so slowly it almost felt like she’d been sleeping and had woken at the sound of Tess’s voice.
Mrs. Thistleton cleared her throat. “Isn’t it a bit late for that?” she asked in a mild tone. Mr. Cleat looked at her, the start of a smile on his face.
“Beg pardon?” he said, though Mrs. Thistleton had spoken clearly.
“Tess has had rather a day of it, don’t you think? We don’t want too much excitement before bed.” She gazed coolly at Mr. Cleat. “It leads to dyspepsia. Disturbed sleep. That sort of thing.”
Mr. Cleat looked amused. “Finish your biscuit, Pauline, and leave the guardianship of my charge up to me, thank you,” he said, and Mrs. Thistleton turned bright red. Instead of pudding, Mrs. Thistleton had made a point of allowing herself only a cup of weak-looking tea and a single plain biscuit, most of which still sat on her saucer. She glared at it as though hoping her stare could set it on fire.
“Of course, Mr. Cleat,” she said, pulling her lips tight once the words had slipped through.
“Good. No further complaints?” Mr. Cleat said, looking brightly from Tess to Mrs. Thistleton and back again. Neither of them said anything. “Come along then,” he said to Tess. He threw his napkin down beside his scraped-clean pudding dish and got to his feet. Tess followed suit and soon they were walking down a long corridor lined with tall windows. Every few feet there was a piece of sculpture, or a potted plant on a spindly table, or a stiffly upright chair with ornate legs. She wondered why everything seemed so strange—like she’d seen it all before but every bit of it had been different. The sick feeling rose up her throat again but she forced it down.
“Here we go,” said Mr. Cleat. His voice broke into Tess’s thoughts, making her jump. “I hope it meets your requirements.”
He pushed open the door of a room halfway along the corridor and flicked on a light switch. The bulbs pocked and flickered before finally coming on and Tess caught her breath as she looked around. There were her glassware and her old gas burner—and there, on a desktop, her experiments notebook, its blue-and-yellow cover unmistakable. Across the back of a chair lay her lab coat, and her heart lurched painfully at the thought of Ackerbee’s, where she’d last seen it, and of Wilf, who must have been the one to pack it away. Violet sat up, as though she recognized it too.
“My—my lab!” she said. “But these aren’t my things,” she added after a few seconds.
A proper full-sized rack filled with gleaming test tubes and beakers stood on one desk and laid out beside it were a pair of tongs, a selection of spatulas and a box that looked to be filled with glass rods. A heavy pestle and mortar made of white marble stood on another desk beside a wall-mounted magnifier, its lens as large as Tess’s face. It had a handsome band of brass around it, which shone like it was freshly polished, and gearwheels down the side to adjust focus and clarity—it was something she’d never dreamed she’d own. She looked at Mr. Cleat. “I hope there hasn’t been a mistake. I don’t have any of this equipment—maybe there was a mix-up somewhere?”
“I told you this was a gift, didn’t I? A present, from me to you.”
Tess’s mouth fell open as she took in the lab. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“What you’ve already said is plenty,” Mr. Cleat assured her. “Now, does this room suit your needs?” He let the question hang as Tess looked around, her head slowly shaking from side to side.
“My last lab was in the basement classroom,” she told him with a shrug. “It was mostly used for detention.”
A warm laugh burst from Mr. Cleat. “I should think this is an improvement then.”
“You could say so,” Tess agreed, still looking around. She walked to the magnifier and ran her hands over its brass fittings and flywheels, almost afraid to properly touch it. “This is really for me?”
Mr. Cleat came to stand beside her. “The person in the shop said it was the top-range model. Will it do?”
Tess held her breath and let it out slowly. This equipment cost more than she could bear to think about. “It must have been very expensive,” she said.
“Not too bad,” Mr. Cleat said, unconcerned. “And if you find it useful, then it will be worth the price.”
“It will be brilliant,” Tess said. “Imagine the drawings I’m going to be able to make with this! I’ll be able to see cell features, and crystal structures, and I’ll be able to do a close-up study of—” Tess stopped short, almost clamping her hand over her mouth. She’d been about to say a close-up study of the object Miss Ackerbee gave me.
“A close-up study of what?” said Mr. Cleat, looking at Tess curiously.
“Of Violet,” Tess said, thinking fast. “But I didn’t want you to think I was cruel.”
Mr. Cleat’s face twisted in distaste. “What on earth for? Don’t you see enough of her?”
“But I’d be able to do detailed anatomy sketches,” said Tess, improvising. “I could do a study of her eyes, maybe, and I’ve always wanted to take a closer look at her leg joints—”
“Yes, yes!” Mr. Cleat said quickly, drowning out Tess’s words. “That all sounds wonderful. And it’ll keep you busy, at least. Too busy to be sad, I hope.”
Violet shrank back against Tess’s scalp as Tess looked up at Mr. Cleat. “I’m still going to miss my home,” she said after a moment or two. “No fancy equipment is going to fix that.”
“But this is your home, Tess,” Mr. Cleat replied. There was a strange light in his eyes. “You won’t be returning to Ackerbee’s. So I did my best to bring some of Ackerbee’s to you.”
“And I said thank you,” Tess retorted, suddenly lacking the courage to raise her voice.
“The best thanks is seeing you in here, content and productive,” he said. “Why not pick up on that experiment you were working on a few months ago, trying to make a flame burn with several different colors at the same time? That looked promising.”
Tess stared at him. “How do you know about that?” A thought clicked into place and her gaze fell on her experiments notebook for a moment before returning to Mr. Cleat’s face. “Have you been looking through my notes?”
“Only the last few entries,” Mr. Cleat said, unfazed. “I wanted to get a sense of what sort of thing you were interested in.” He gave Tess a sidelong glance. “Just making sure I hadn’t wasted my money equipping you with the lab of your dreams.”
Tess thrummed with rage. Her notes were private; he’d had no business looking at them. “No, of course not,” she found herself saying. “Thank you. But please don’t look in my notebook again.”
“If you insist,” Mr. Cleat said with a sigh. “Though I am interested in your work, you know. You have talent. And you have what every scientist needs—attention to detail, methodical thinking and seemingly endless patience.” He raised an eyebrow. “With objects, at least. Not so much with people, I see.”
Tess felt her cheeks grow hot. “I didn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Cleat said, backing toward the door. “It’s getting late, so I’ll bid you good night. I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of work you produce in here—and of course if there’s anything you need, just let me know. I’m happy to be a patron of scientific inquiry.” He raised the corner of his mouth in a half grin.
“I’m not really that good. I just sort of make things up as I go along and see where I end up.” Tess put one hand on the fabric of her old lab coat, hoping it would help her to feel less light-headed and more solid.
“But that’s how most of these world-changing discoveries were made, my dear,” Mr. Cleat replied as he opened the door. “Completely by accident or while searching for something else.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Remind me, once you’re happily settled here, to tell you about some of the stuff I like to tinker with. Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to take my work to new heights. Now that would be worthy repayment for this gift.”
“All right,” Tess replied, because she couldn’t think of anything better to say.
“Until tomorrow, then,” Mr. Cleat said. “Sleep well. I hope the demons of indigestion don’t keep you awake all night as Old Thistlebum—” He stopped himself, drawing his lips tight as he tried to hold back his mirth, and raising his eyebrows at Tess. “I mean, Mrs. Thistleton, of course, had feared,” he continued after a beat.
Tess, despite everything, managed a watery grin. “I’ll try my best,” she told him.
“Good enough for me.” He gave her one final nod, then slipped out of the room, leaving the door standing open.
Tess turned back to face her new lab. She reached out to touch her coat again, the sad pressure in her head beginning to build once more, and then—
“Before I forget,” came Mr. Cleat’s voice from behind her. Tess jumped and let out a yelp as she turned to see him standing in the doorway. “Oh! I’m so sorry,” he said, stepping into the lab again. He held out a hand; clutched between two fingers was a small key. “I just wanted to give you this—the key to the room. So you have the security of leaving your experiments running, knowing they won’t be disturbed.” He paused, shrugging. “Or of storing things here if you wanted to.” His voice was light, the words an afterthought.
Tess took it from him with a nod and slipped it into her cardigan pocket. It touched the object hidden there with a tiny clink of metal against metal, but Tess glanced up at Mr. Cleat; he gave no sign of having heard it. “Thanks,” she said finally. Her heart was still thudding fast.
“And now I’ll say a proper good night,” he said. “One where I’ll actually go away rather than frighten you silly just before bed.” He gave her an apologetic look and ducked out of the door before she had a chance to reply.
Tess waited a few minutes, then gathered up her experiments notebook and her lab coat. She slid the notebook into one of the coat’s pockets before putting it on, burying her nose in its frayed collar and feeling for its loose button, third from the top, which had always hung by a thread. Violet began her slow, careful trek from the top of her head to the space just above her collarbone. Tess kissed her finger and tapped Violet gently with it and the spider curled up, content.
Then Tess turned off the lights and closed the door. As she turned away, ready to make her way to her too-big, too-empty room upstairs, she saw Millie approaching from the far end of the corridor, her arms full of folded laundry. Tess stood back to let her pass.
“Good night, miss,” Millie whispered as she went by. Then she paused to look at Tess’s collar with bright, interested eyes. “And good night to you too, Miss Violet,” she added, glancing up at Tess and giving her a warm grin.
Then Millie was gone, but Tess clung fast to her smile—the only bright thing to have happened on an otherwise terrible day—for long into the night.