Avoid as much as possible being alone with the opposite sex.
S. & S. Adams, The Complete Servant
That evening before supper, Alfred saw Miss Hawk slip a note into Captain Vyne’s hand. He reported this to William, who shared it with Jane, who passed on the news to her fellow housemaids. While the others girls were exceedingly interested and impressed by this development, it made Pattern very anxious indeed. If Miss Hawk was arranging an assignation with the Captain, it was sure to end badly for him, particularly after what she’d witnessed with Lord Charnly.
Pattern did not know what was coming, or what she could do about it, but the strange prickling energy she had sensed last night was once more in the air. Earlier in the day, Mrs Palfrey had discovered a rainbow-coloured parrot in the pantry, and a leopard napping in the library had given the Dowager a start, yet nobody seemed in the least bit concerned by the wild beasts and birds making themselves at home in the house. Nor had any of the servants enquired as to the whereabouts of Lord Charnly and his valet, Stokes. Whatever magic was at work, its power was only increasing.
When, after supper, the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room, the Captain took the first chance to slip away. Pattern followed. He was heading to a small study at the end of the hall. It was one of those rooms that put Pattern in mind of Nate’s observation that the house was dressed like a stage set, for, in contrast to the austere Classical style of most of the villa, this cosy book-lined den would not look out of place in a country vicarage. Miss Hawk’s sewing basket rested on one of the leather armchairs.
Pattern hesitated at the door. She could think of no good reason for being there, but the Captain seemed pleased to see her. ‘Aha. Fetch me a light, would you? It’s damnably dark.’
The only illumination came from the moon shining through the window. Pattern would have thought the darkness contributed to the air of mystery that surrounds romantic assignations. However, when she hastened back with a candle, she saw what the Captain had in mind. There was a full-length mirror along one of the walls, in which the gentleman wished to inspect his reflection.
‘That’s right. Bring the light here.’ He smoothed down his hair, turning this way and that to see his handsome profile at its best advantage. It was little wonder he had such a bewitching effect upon the ladies. ‘Higher, if you please.’ He was peering at the glass, trying to make out a tiny imperfection above his eyebrow. ‘Damn midges . . .’
As the candlelight brightened the glass, the mirror began to shimmer. It sparkled and swirled, a pool of quicksilver. Alarmed, Pattern took a step back. As she did so, the glass swung forward off the wall. The mirror was, in fact, a hinged door.
‘Good Lord,’ said the Captain, squinting at the shadowy interior it had revealed. ‘A hidden passageway! How quaint.’
‘It is probably not safe, sir. In these old houses, such structures are often unstable.’
‘Nonsense.’ He poked his head into the darkness. A ripple of laughter could be heard from within. ‘By Jove, that’s Miss Hawk! Sounds like she’s just around the corner.’
‘Please, sir, I really don’t see how she can be. Sir, I beg you to reconsider. I fear – I fear a trap of some kind. I do not think you are aware of the danger—’
‘Fear? Danger? Ha! An officer of the Royal Dragoons is not afraid of a bit of dust and spiders! Give me your candle. Quickly, now . . . Don’t look so downcast, little mouse. Faint hearts never win fair ladies, y’know!’
With a wink and a smirk, which were no doubt intended to be dashing, he stepped jauntily into the narrow opening, pulling the mirror door shut behind him. Pattern sprang after him, only just in time to prevent it closing. She had a strong feeling that once it did, it would not open again. She propped it open with A Naturalist’s Guide to Cull pulled from the bookshelves and hurried over to Miss Hawk’s sewing basket—
‘What’s going on?’
Pattern started, but it was only Nate; he had clearly followed after her. In different circumstances, she might have been annoyed at being shadowed, but she was relieved to see him. She gave him the story as quickly as possible.
‘I am going after the Captain, but I will leave the end of this piece of embroidery silk tied to the leg of the sofa, and take the rest of the skein with me. If I tug on the thread, then you are to fetch help – and if you tug on it, I will come back straight away.’
‘You can’t go there alone! It’s sure to be a trap of some kind. Who knows what manner of monster could be lurking in there?’
‘Nonetheless I must go,’ she said firmly as she lit a fresh candle. Nate was not employed by the Silver Service; he should not endanger himself for Captain Vyne’s sake. ‘I cannot explain why, but you have to trust me when I say I have . . . well, I have a special obligation to stop Lady Hawk’s schemes.’
Nate looked ready to protest further, but there was no time for debate. ‘Please, I beg you to stay here and watch the thread, and ensure the door stays open for our return.’
He was frowning. ‘And if one of the other servants or a guest should find me here?’
‘You’ll think of something – I’m sure of it. See you soon,’ she said, with more confidence than she felt, as she slipped through the mirrored door.
It was very dark inside, in spite of the candle Pattern carried and the chink of light from the gap in the door. The walls and floor of the passage were made of rough-hewn stone. But only a little way ahead, the passage made a sharp left turn, and the darkness suddenly burst into light and life.
Pattern was surrounded by endless images of herself, above, below and to either side of her. She was in a corridor made entirely of mirrors. She spun round, and the reflected Patterns spun round too; identical startled frowns on their identical faces.
Even though the space was not particularly narrow, she immediately felt breathless, cramped. There was no escape from herself: even the ground was a mirror, in which countless more Patterns were multiplied into space. It seemed she had moved beyond the physical confines of the villa into some other dimension. The bounce of candlelight between the mirrors dazzled her eyes, increasing her disorientation. She clutched at her little coil of silk thread and took a deep, steadying breath. After walking only a short way, she reached a crossroads.
‘Captain Vyne?’ she called out, and her voice echoed hollowly. She thought she heard an answering shout. It seemed to come from her left, and so she turned that way. As she rounded the corner, the corridor split into four, sending multiple reflections cascading in yet more directions. It was like being in the centre of a kaleidoscope.
‘C-Captain?’
‘Here!’
The sound came, very faintly, from the second of the four branching corridors. At least she thought so; the echoes made it hard to be sure. And the next turning was even more disorientating, for in this corridor the wall of glass was subtly curved so that the mirrors’ reflections were distorted further.
Pattern had heard of such tricks at fairgrounds, where she could see that it might be amusing to view oneself monstrously stretched or squeezed. Here, it was nightmarish. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuffled forward, making her way by touch alone, running her fingertips along the cool, smooth glass.
‘Captain Vyne . . . are you there?’
Another shout, which sounded like a muffled curse, echoed eerily from somewhere ahead. Pattern approached another crossroads.
As she continued unspooling the thread behind her, she regretted not keeping better track of her progress. She seemed to remember there was a trick to navigating mazes – weren’t you supposed to keep your hand on the wall at all times? Or always turn to the left? Something like that . . .
Another faint shout, or curse, or cry, came from somewhere ahead.
‘Stay where you are! I’m coming to find you!’
Then she felt the thread twitch.
Someone was pulling at it. Nate, she thought, and her heart clenched. Was he in trouble? Had they been found out by Lady Hawk? Or was it a trap, to lure her back out of the maze before she could help the Captain?
The thread of silk was tugged again, with new urgency. The moment of decision was agonizing. But she could not risk Nate being in trouble, especially after he had saved her from the centaur. Then there was the danger of the thread breaking, in which case both she and the Captain would be trapped.
‘I’m sorry!’ she shouted helplessly into the kaleidoscope of glass. ‘I have to go. But I’ll come back . . .’
She retraced her brief journey through the maze, feeling more breathless and dizzy with every step. Her foreboding was justified, for when she finally tumbled out of the door, she found Nate with Miss Hawk’s hands wrapped round his throat.
‘You should not be in this room,’ Miss Hawk told him, and it was in the same mild, quiet tones in which she was wont to remark on the weather. Her unblinking blue eyes were fixed on Nate’s face. As Pattern watched, aghast, she lifted him up with her tiny hands, so he dangled helplessly in her grip, legs thrashing, a good three feet above the floor.
‘Let him go!’ Pattern cried.
Miss Hawk turned and regarded her calmly. ‘You should not be here either. Presently, I will punish you too.’
Still holding Nate round the neck, she glided to the mirror door and kicked it shut. Pattern was unable to stop her: the young woman’s strength was superhuman. As Pattern had feared, once the door was closed, it instantly sealed itself against the wall. There was no way back into the maze – and no way out for Captain Vyne.
Right now, however, Pattern had other problems with which to contend. Miss Hawk had begun to squeeze Nate’s neck. Flailing wildly, he tried to scratch at her face as he choked and gasped. Pattern tugged and kicked, but she might as well have been attacking a figure made of marble. There was not so much as a scratch on Miss Hawk’s smooth flesh. The only damage Pattern could inflict was to her clothes as, with a ripping sound, three of the tiny pearl buttons on the back of her gown popped off.
Pattern stopped her attack. She was transfixed at the sight the gaping dress had exposed: a small metal enclosure between Miss Hawk’s shoulder blades. It was similar in size as well as appearance to the winding hole on a clock. Whether or not the girl was Lady Hawk’s real daughter, Pattern had always supposed her to be under some kind of spell. A horrible idea struck her – what if Miss Hawk was not flesh and blood at all? What if she really was the living doll she so closely resembled?
But mechanical things could be broken. As Nate’s face grew purple, and his splutters yet more desperate, Pattern rushed to fetch the brass key belonging to the clock on the mantelpiece and jammed it into the metal hole in Miss Hawk’s back. She turned it counterclockwise as forcefully as she could. A creaking sound came from somewhere deep within Miss Hawk, like the squeaking of rusty gears. She released Nate so abruptly, he fell to the floor in a heap. Afterwards, she kept to her place, swaying slightly and blinking rapidly, turning her face this way and that.
‘Wh-wh-what is she?’ Nate asked hoarsely, once he had recovered sufficiently to speak. He sounded like his throat was red-raw and bruised.
‘An automaton, I think.’ Pattern spoke more calmly than she felt. She needed to set a professional example, after all.
‘A whaty-what?’
‘A kind of self-operating machine. Like a wind-up doll or a clock.’
‘Then that must be the key to the contraption.’ Nate pointed to the girl’s neck, and the little gold charm in the shape of a key she always wore. It was much smaller and more delicate than the key Pattern had wedged in her back, and was inset with tiny diamonds. ‘Hey now – if we take the key, does that mean she’ll wind down and stop working sooner or later? That’ll put a spanner in Lady Hawk’s plans.’
This was an excellent idea, and Pattern felt a prick of annoyance that she had not thought of it herself. ‘I am sure Lady Hawk will keep a spare key somewhere. But it is a start.’ Pattern undid the clasp of the necklace and put the little key in her pocket. She glanced at the clock and was surprised to see their misadventures had only taken twenty minutes. ‘Poor Captain Vyne! I fear he is lost to us.’
‘What happened behind the mirror?’
Pattern briefly described the maze, and Nate explained his own misadventure.
‘Miss Hawk, as soon as she saw the open door, went to close it, and when I tried to stop her, that’s when she turned on me. Her eyes flashed with this cold blue light. And her hands! Like being grabbed by iron pincers, it was. Even so, I’m right sorry for having to pull the thread.’
Pattern was sorry too, but she could hardly hold it against him. ‘We have made real progress,’ she assured him. ‘Disabling Miss Hawk may well be the first step on our way to rescuing her suitors. But now we must set things to rights and get out of here before her mama or anyone else comes looking for her.’
They spent several minutes tidying the study and removing all evidence of their tussle. The doll continued to jerk and twitch, but did not move from her position and was otherwise passive. She put up no resistance as Pattern tidied her hair and straightened her dress, even managing to quickly re-sew the tiny buttons on the back of her gown using the threads in Miss Hawk’s sewing basket. However, Pattern was fearful about what would happen once she removed the key. Would the doll go into spasms and break down completely? Or would she move to attack them again?
Nate was armed with a brass candlestick in case they needed further defence. Yet once her mechanics were un-jammed, the Miss Hawk doll merely smiled at them. ‘I must go back to my mama,’ she murmured.
‘Is everything well, miss?’ Pattern asked hesitantly.
‘Quite well, thank you.’
‘Were you, er, looking for something?’
‘I was going to meet the Captain. I see he is not here. That is as it should be.’ She glided to the door. ‘Goodnight.’
Pattern and Nate exchanged glances. The doll clearly had no memory of what had just taken place. There was no visible damage except that her head was tilted ever so slightly to the left, and there was a faint, very faint, clicking sound as she walked. But even if Lady Hawk did not notice these signs of injury, she would be sure to miss the charm from round her so-called daughter’s neck. It would not be long before she realized that someone was working against her.