MUCH TO PIP’S secret astonishment, see she did.
Simon had set to work that very night, though the first she knew of it was when Caroline hauled her from her slumber with a rough shake. The woman, hair flowing freely around her shoulders, her long white nightgown standing out starkly in the darkness, leaned over her, hissing, ‘What is the meaning of this? Answer me, you young wretch!’
‘What, what …?’ Brain sludgy with sleep, Pip could only blink in confusion.
‘You know very well what. You, skulking … skulking around …’ She paused, as though finally realising this was an impossibility – Pip had clearly been fast asleep just now. There was no escaping the fact. She’d been nowhere apart from her bed, and Caroline knew it.
‘Mrs Goldthorpe, what is it? I were but dreaming; what have I done?’
It was a long moment before the woman’s quiet response pierced the silence. ‘It matters not. Get back to sleep.’
She sloped back to her own room, and Pip’s small smile went with her.
‘I thought it best to strike while Miss Lucy’s words were still fresh in her mind,’ Simon told her discreetly the following morning as they were eating their porridge. He flashed a shaky grin. ‘By, I don’t mind telling you: my heart weren’t half thumping as I stole up the main stairs.’
‘You could have warned me is all I’m saying. Frickened the liver out of me, it did, her looming over me like that in the dead of night.’ Pip glanced about before adding, ‘What did you do, then? Whatever it were, lad, it rattled her good and proper. She were fair wild for answers.’
‘Listened at her room, didn’t I, to make sure all were still within, then I opened the door – slow, you know, so’s it creaked all eerie, like – before slamming it shut again. ’Ere, it were perfect. I almost scared my rotten self! The noise I heard her let out afore I scarpered … Honest to God, I wondered for a minute if she’d gone abed that night with a suckling piglet.’
‘What are youse two giggling at, then?’ Cook called across, smiling, as they smothered nervous laughter with their hands.
‘Pip were just telling a joke,’ Simon called back, thinking on his feet. ‘You want to hear it, Cook?’
‘Ay, lad, go on.’ She came to rest her arms on the back of a chair facing them. ‘Fond of a good belly tickler, I am.’
‘How d’you stop a fish from smelling?’
She scratched her dimpled chin. ‘’Ere, I don’t know. But I’d like to, aye.’ Her profession winning through, she awaited the answer with genuine interest. ‘How so?’
‘Cut off its nose!’ burst out Pip for him, recognising this as what an old drunkard used to tell them each and every night on his way home when they begged outside the taverns, before doubling up with laughter.
‘Eh? Cut off …? Ay, you pair of daft swines, what’re you like!’ With a shake of her head and a roll of her eyes, she returned to the bubbling cooking pot needing her attention.
The children, wiping tears of mirth from their eyes, smiled wistfully.
‘Do you miss it, Simon? The slums, I mean.’
He answered just as quietly. ‘Sometimes. Weren’t all bad, were it?’
Pip shook her head. ‘There were a few good souls hidden amongst the bad, aye.’ A sudden vision of Peter, who had come to her rescue and given up his bed for her at Nan Nuttall’s, appeared in her mind. Again, she smiled.
‘I reckon often of late that we’d have mebbe fared better stopping put.’
She nodded. Owing to recent occurrences, she’d begun wondering the same.
‘Come on.’ He rose suddenly and motioned for her to follow. ‘I’ve another idea.’
Once in the garden, she watched him go to stand by the trees bordering the perimeter. Peering up, he scanned them keenly, reaching to finger a bare, winter-hardened branch here and there then dismissing it with a shake of his head.
‘What you thinking, lad?’
‘Here, you search over there.’ He motioned to the garden’s opposite end.
‘For what?’
‘Sticks. They must be just right – long and thin, and the sturdier the better.’
‘Will these do?’ Pip asked minutes later, producing a handful, yet still with no idea what use he would find for them. She watched him bend them in different directions, checking their durability, his tongue peeping out in concentration. The majority he discarded but two seemed to pass his standards; along with one he himself had found, he hid them beneath a bush close by the back doorstep.
‘How will sticks help? What’s tha planning? Tell me, lad.’
‘In a minute. First, help me find some strong twine.’
They located what he needed in the dresser drawer – fortunately, the servants were too occupied with their own affairs to notice. Simon stuffed the spool into his pocket. Then he took a deep breath and nodded, satisfied.
Pip raised an eyebrow. ‘Well?’
He went to stand in a quiet nook of the kitchen, she followed, and they leaned with their shoulders against the wall, heads close together.
‘I got thinking on summat Cook said to Cally. Remember, about ghostly fingers of death? I can’t risk entering Mrs Goldthorpe’s room while she’s there, nay, but … Well, happen I don’t need to. Them branches we’ve collected, I’m for tying them together to make one big long ’un. Then can you guess what I’m going to do with them?’ A mixture of excitement and nervous anticipation sparked in his eyes. When she shook her head, he licked his lips then whispered, ‘I’m going to pass it through the keyhole of her door and poke her with it – hard!’
Eyes like saucers, Pip’s hand slowly travelled to cover her mouth.
‘Last night, when I were up there, I got a view of yon bedroom upon opening the door – the Goldthorpes’ bed stands nigh on facing the entrance and at no great distance from it. I reckon I can pull this off, I do. This will surely put the wind up her good and proper. Imagine it, woken from your slumber in the pitch-dark night by an unseen hand prodding at your person. The door’s firmly secured and you know there ain’t no one in the room with you that shouldn’t be. By, she’ll shit the sheets in fear, you see if she don’t. I know I would!’
He’d succeeded in setting the wheels in motion with Miss Lucy, it was true. And, Pip had to admit, his antics last night had worked like a charm; Caroline had been visibly affected. But this new idea? She wasn’t convinced. It was a bold move, even for the brave Simon. There was so much that could go awry. ‘Lad, I don’t know …’
‘Thought you believed in me?’
‘I do, honest, it’s just … What if the twine comes loose, or the sticks snap? What are husband and wife going to think upon wakening to find a bunch of wood and string in the middle of their floor?’
‘They’ll not. I’ll secure everything proper.’
‘What if she springs up afore you’ve a chance to pull the contraption back out of the keyhole? She’ll catch you red-handed.’
‘Then I’ll practise awhile pushing it in and out, build my speed up, like, afore going ahead. Besides, it’ll be dark; she’ll see nowt. And dumb with sleep as she’ll be, I’ll have had time to remove it and scarper afore she gathers her senses.’
Still, Pip wasn’t reassured. And another, more worrying prospect occurred to her: ‘What if you poke Mr Philip by mistake? After all, you can’t be certain she sleeps on the side of the bed closest to the door.’
This time, the lad bit his lip. ‘I never thought of that. Ay, well.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a risk I’ll just have to take, ain’t it?’
‘Eeh, Simon …’
‘Trust me. It’ll work. It will.’
Knowing he wouldn’t be swayed from this, she had no option but to support him. Thoughts of what their torturer would do should she discover him set her chest tightening and her knees atremble. She brushed his hand with hers in an affectionate caress. ‘Be watchful, eh, lad? Should summat occur, happen if the master’s dogs hear you on the landing and bark, give the game away—’
‘They’ll not. They didn’t last night.’
‘But if they do this time, or if someone should spot you and demand to know what you’re about in that part of the house, tell them … tell them Mack was crying for me. Aye yes, and you’d had no choice but to collect me afore he wakened the whole building. That’s believable enough, eh?’
His eyes were soft at her concern. He nodded. Then drawing his hand away from hers, he patted his pocket. ‘Right, I’d best get on.’
‘Aye.’
‘If your lady needs you with her and I don’t see you again the day … Wish me luck.’
‘Good luck, lad.’
Unsurprisingly, owing to the recent news, Josephine’s anxiety struck severely that night. Now that a date had been finalised and the upcoming marriage was official, it had suddenly become to her terrifyingly real. She was unable to shake her overthinking, over-fretting about the minutiae that could possibly go wrong on the big day, and hours later she still showed no sign of clawing through the other side. Curled in a ball upon the chaise longue as the dizziness made it impossible for her to sit upright or stand, pale and drawn, her skin slicked with perspiration, she looked exhausted. Still, of its own free will, her body trembled violently and her heart rate out-galloped any thoroughbred.
Pip was at a loss what to do, had already tried every method she knew to bring an end to the bout but nothing had worked. The cruel truth that Josephine had been severely mistaken in thinking she had her condition under control, which the lady now realised, had served only to make her spirits and state of mind plummet, thus exacerbating things. So it continued on, relentlessly.
Eyes yet again drawn to the clock atop the mantel, her own heart gave a few hard thumps at the lateness of the hour. Simon would be putting his latest plan into action any time – pray be to God, he wouldn’t be caught out. Gulping down her worry, she busied herself with instructing Josephine yet again to slow her breathing, though for different reasons – a much-needed distraction for them both.
‘Am I dying, Pip?’
‘Nay, Miss Josephine. It’s just your mind fretting, is all, just like the other times. You’ll come through it soon. Deep breaths, eh?’
‘If mere thoughts of the wedding have brought me to my knees like this, then pray what will I be like on the actual day? I shan’t be able to go through with it, will I? I’ll ruin it just as I do everything else. I’m pathetic.’
‘Nay, don’t speak so. You’re wonderful, you are.’ If only you yourself could see it.
‘Are you certain I’m not dying, Pip? Perhaps this time, it’s a different ailment altogether that I’ve been struck with and—’
‘It’s one and the same, honest,’ she murmured soothingly. ‘You’ll be well again shortly, you’ll see.’
The lady fell quiet for a time, the only sound in the dimly lit room her ragged breathing. Again, Pip’s eyes strayed to the clock. Oh lad, lad …
‘My chest, it hurts so much from my heart’s heavy beating. I, I feel nauseous, also.’ Suddenly, Josephine smiled faintly. ‘My mother would recite poetry to me whenever I was confined to my sickbed for whatever reason as a child. It never failed to make me feel better.’
‘Do you recall them, the poems?’
‘I’m … not sure. One or two, perhaps.’
Pip gently wiped her mistress’s glistening brow. ‘Then why not see if it’ll work now? Close your eyes and say them in your mind. Say them nice and slow, think about the words; concentrate, like. Go on, Miss Josephine, give it a try.’
The lady did as she bid her. Minutes passed. Occupied once more with the timepiece across the room, it was a while before Pip noticed that the air had stilled – her mistress had fallen silent. She glanced down at her and released a long sigh. Josephine’s expression was one of ease, the worry lines smoothed out. Her breathing was sedate, controlled.
‘Better, Miss Josephine?’ she whispered.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. Sleepiness thickened her words. ‘Yes. Yes, I—’ An almighty screech from next door sliced the response to ribbons.
Pip almost choked on a gasp. She rose slowly to her feet.
‘My goodness! Oh, what in the world …?’ Josephine scrambled up to stand beside her. Gazing at the door, neither moved for a few seconds. ‘Oh, that’s Caroline!’ Josephine added as another shrill cry rent the air. She rushed for the door but before she could reach it, it burst open and the lady herself hurtled in, almost knocking her sister-in-law to the ground.
‘You. You!’
Rooted to the spot, Pip could only stare in terror as Caroline rushed towards her, teeth bared, claw-like hands outstretched as though she meant to tear the flesh from her face. ‘I ain’t, ain’t done nowt, I …!’
‘Liar. Liar!’
At the last second, Pip swerved from her path and ran, whimpering, to hide behind Josephine. Clinging to her nightdress as though her life depended on it – which, given Caroline’s reputation, it very possibly did – she burst into noisy sobs.
Panting with pure fury, Caroline tried to rush at her again but Josephine held out a hand as a shield: ‘Stop this! You’re scaring the poor girl half to death. What on earth has got into you?’
‘She’s the one, she did it!’
‘Did what? What is the meaning of all this— Oh, Philip, thank goodness,’ Josephine continued on the next breath as her brother appeared in the doorway, face stiff with irritation.
‘Hell’s teeth, woman, come back to bed before you wake the whole house. It was merely a vivid dream, I told you—’
‘That was no dream, Philip.’ Caroline’s eyes spat daggers at him. ‘It was real. I felt it.’
‘Enough of this nonsense! The door was secured from the inside – which you yourself insisted upon, remember, due to a similar incident you claim occurred last night—’
‘That was different. This night, something, someone, touched me! It did!’
He looked decidedly embarrassed. ‘You’re making a spectacle of yourself. People cannot pass through locked doors, and you and I were the only two in that room, damn it.’
‘That wretched little parasite, that one there, she did it.’ Ignoring her husband, she thrust a finger to where Pip was peeking out from behind her mistress. ‘It was her, she—’
‘Pip hasn’t left my side all night. Not once, even for a second.’ Josephine nodded. ‘It’s true, sister-in-law.’
‘Miss Josephine speaks right. I ain’t passed beyond yon door, honest, Mrs Goldthorpe.’
At Pip’s timid words, Caroline’s eyes narrowed into slits. ‘Those pests you call friends; they’re responsible, aren’t they?’
‘Oh nay, Mrs Goldthorpe, nay. They know their place. Never would they dare to stray beyond the kitchen.’ To her sheer relief, Caroline looked as if she believed her. ‘Cook would box their ears for them good and proper were they to even think it. She would, honest.’
‘Lucy—’
‘Is sleeping peacefully upstairs, Caroline,’ snapped Philip.
‘Then maybe … maybe Albert—’
He exploded. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! My father can barely stand without assistance. Now, enough of this. I’ve stated already, no one has power to pass through locked doors. It was a dream. Put it from your mind and come back to bed.’
Dropping her stare, she frowned. Her fingers plucked anxiously at her chin. She walked from the room without another word.
After shooting his sister an apologetic look, Philip followed Caroline out.
‘Is all well down there?’ The new maid Budd, leaning over the banister outside the nursery above, called down worriedly. ‘Mrs Goldthorpe? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
Innocent, unsuspecting, brilliant Budd! Of all the things she could have said …! Thank you, thank you! Pip hid bubbling laughter when, with a squeak, Caroline dashed away to her room.
With calm restored, she and Josephine prepared for bed. Pip managed to contain her fizzing emotions until she was in the seclusion of the dressing room – here, they spilled forth and she was forced to clap a hand to her mouth so as not to alert her mistress. But it wasn’t upset or worry or even fear that had her in its grip now, pumping her veins with excited energy that made it impossible to relax and led her to pace the small space. It was euphoria. Because Simon had been right all along. His completely ridiculous, utterly genius scheme, was working. Caroline was well and truly rattled. They were besting her! And things, if they put their minds to it, could surely only get better.
Fear and desperate need for redemption would drive the witch into confessing all eventually, she just knew it. Life would improve tremendously, for them all. Then it would be Alexander Sutton-Shaw’s turn …
The thought brought a surprised smile to her lips. She nodded grimly. Seeing the results on Caroline had, it seemed, awakened in Pip something she hadn’t known existed.
She and Simon would out those who had wronged them and others, if it was the last thing they did. There was no stopping them, now.