‘But Lashwood is a madhouse,’ I said, feeling rather mystified. ‘Who would want to lock us in a madhouse? I’m not even slightly bonkers.’
Everyone had heard of Lashwood. It was an insane asylum in Islington of the most unpleasant variety. The worst in all of London, some said. Which begged the question – what was going on?
‘This is a mistake!’ shouted Matilda, stomping her foot. ‘Let us out! We do not belong here!’ She turned to me, trying bravely to control her tears. ‘Do something, Pocket!’
Screams of anguish and madness could be heard through the damp walls. A rat scurried across the floor at great speed.
‘My options are rather limited at the present moment, dear,’ I said, tugging the chain around my ankle for effect. ‘We will simply have to wait for someone who isn’t a kidnapping thug to come by, so we can straighten this whole thing out.’
The girl began to howl. Pull on her chain. Call for a constable. Demand fresh bloomers and a bubble bath. She only stopped when we heard the bolt on the door sliding back. Matilda and I exchanged anxious and hopeful looks as the door opened and a rather hefty woman in a grimy black and white dress came in with a bucket and ladle.
She stopped a few feet away from us and stuck a finger up her nose, foraging about with abandon.
‘Water?’ she said with little enthusiasm.
‘Water?’ bellowed Matilda. ‘Unlock us, you ghastly trollop!’
She looked at me. ‘Water?’
‘Allow me to explain our situation – we are two perfectly upstanding girls who were wickedly taken from Hyde Park and locked in this horrid madhouse. You look like a kind-hearted sort, so would you be so kind as to ask one of the doctors to pay us a visit?’
‘What’s in it for me, then?’
Luckily, I was ready for such a question. ‘Are you a spinster, dear?’
She frowned. ‘What of it?’
‘Well, I know a shoemaker in Bristol in search of a wife. He specifically asked for a nose picker of wide girth.’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘I would be glad to pass on your particulars if you would talk to the doctor about visiting us.’
‘I hate Bristol,’ she said.
‘You have to help us!’ roared Matilda.
‘I hate Bristol,’ she said again.
And with that she walked out and locked the door.
Hours passed. I cannot be certain how many. Matilda quietened down.
‘Surely your mother will sound the alarm,’ I said hopefully.
‘Of course she will,’ snapped Matilda. Her hair had begun to wilt, the flowers coming loose and scattering around our feet like snowdrops. ‘Mother will be beside herself when she discovers I have not come home. She will summon the British army if that’s what it takes.’
Which was awfully encouraging.
‘And Grandmother will have a fit!’ she declared. ‘That’s if her heart doesn’t give out – after what happened with Rebecca, I don’t think she could take another Butterfield disaster.’
‘Your cousin is alive,’ I heard myself say.
Matilda laughed. Yes, laughed. I couldn’t blame her.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, Rebecca is alive.’ I slid down the wall and sat on the cold floor. ‘It’s a terrifically long story which doesn’t yet have an ending – but the fact remains, I have seen her and she lives.’
‘Maybe you do belong in here, Pocket – you’re mad.’
‘The Clock Diamond does more than just kill,’ I said softly.
Matilda joined me on the floor, her knees tucked up inside her ball gown. ‘But how?’
‘When she wore the Clock Diamond her soul was taken to a place called Prospa. She is not happy there and suffers greatly, but I am doing my best to bring her back.’
‘Are you wearing it?’ Matilda’s eyes sparkled eagerly in the dim light. ‘Perhaps the necklace can help us get out of here – have you got it, Pocket?’
I felt a stab of regret. Of longing. I shook my head.
‘You’re lying,’ hissed Matilda.
Before I could reply the door opened with a torturous creak. Pale light from the corridor washed into the small cell. The doctor. It had to be the doctor!
I heard the clicking of a cane over the stone floor – like the ticks of a grandfather clock. And it chilled me to the bone. For it couldn’t be. Could it? A bewildered frown was already settling on my face, just as Lady Elizabeth Butterfield walked into the dank chamber.
‘Welcome,’ said the old bat.
Matilda and I leapt to our feet, our chains rattling in a ghastly symphony.
‘You don’t know how pleased I am to see you, dear!’ I cried, showering Lady Elizabeth with my most grateful, yet stunned, expression. ‘We have had the most shocking ordeal. Kidnapped. Pushed about. Chained to a wall. Haven’t we, Matilda?’
The girl did not reply. She only grinned.
‘Matilda, is this true?’ said Lady Elizabeth, peering at her granddaughter.
‘Every word, Grandmother.’
‘Pleased to hear it,’ she huffed.
Which was odd. I felt I was missing something. Why were they talking in such a strange manner? It only made sense when Matilda bent down and removed the shackle from around her ankle with ease. After all, it had never been locked.
She kicked it away and took her place beside Lady Elizabeth.
By this stage I was shaking my head. ‘I don’t understand.’
Lady Elizabeth lifted her cane and pointed it at me. ‘You filled Rebecca’s head with dangerous nonsense and I am certain it led to her death. And you destroyed Matilda’s birthday ball, making her the laughing stock of Suffolk. The Butterfield name is now mired in scandal and tragedy and it is all because of you, Miss Pocket.’
‘Grandmother didn’t think you were stupid enough to fall for our little trick,’ said Matilda brightly, ‘but I promised her that you were.’
‘We’ve had you followed for weeks,’ said Lady Elizabeth with delight.
‘This whole night has been …?’ I didn’t finish the sentence. It was too awful.
‘This whole night has been the beginning,’ said Lady Elizabeth. ‘The beginning of retribution for your sins, Miss Pocket.’
The old bat was just as I remembered her. Head like a walnut. Hands like talons. Bony as a skeleton. Full of fury. Miss Frost had warned me that Lady Elizabeth would direct her venom at me after Rebecca’s death, but I had not taken her seriously.
‘You cannot do this,’ I said. ‘A person cannot be committed to a madhouse without a doctor’s say-so. I have read of such things in perfectly reputable novels.’
Lady Elizabeth huffed. ‘Never read a novel that didn’t make me want to shoot the author with a musket.’ She turned her wrinkled head towards the door. ‘Professor, come!’
I did not know it, but a figure had been listening in the corridor outside, waiting for his cue. He walked briskly into the cell and smiled rather gushingly at Lady Elizabeth.
‘Professor Ploomgate is one of the most respected doctors in the country,’ said Lady Elizabeth, ‘and as I am a member of the board here at Lashwood and a rather generous benefactress, he agreed to assess your questionable mental state.’
‘How are you feeling, Ivy?’ said Professor Ploomgate.
‘Never better, dear,’ I said, as sanely as I knew how. ‘Apart from being the victim of a rather vengeful old bat and her hateful granddaughter.’
‘I see,’ said the Professor with a meaningful nod of his head.
He was impossibly grim. Sour expression. Eyes of the green and bulging variety. A forehead so vast and furrowed, it was practically crying out for wallpaper. But as frightful as he appeared, he was a respected doctor and was certain to see through this wicked scheme.
‘Do you speak with ghosts, Ivy?’ he asked next.
‘Only when absolutely necessary,’ was my winning reply.
‘Very interesting.’
‘Now she thinks Rebecca is alive in some other world,’ Matilda added helpfully, ‘and just a short time ago, she told me she had visited there herself.’
The Professor’s bulging eyes threatened to pop clear out of their sockets. ‘The patient said she had travelled to another world?’
‘Perhaps she has,’ said Matilda. ‘There is a necklace she possesses that is rather unusual.’
‘Claptrap!’ barked Lady Elizabeth. She hit the Professor’s shoe with her cane. ‘Is this not proof enough that she’s deranged?’
‘Is this true, Ivy?’ He stepped towards me. ‘Do you believe that you have left this world and reached another?’
The situation was getting rather out of hand.
‘Look, Professor Plumcake,’ I said, ‘I think there has been –’
‘Ploomgate,’ he said tersely. ‘My name is Professor Ploomgate.’
‘Well, that’s not your fault, dear. It’s rather like your forehead – regrettable, but entirely out of your control. Now be a good man and unchain me.’
‘What did I tell you?’ snapped Lady Elizabeth, hitting the Professor’s shoe again. ‘Here is a girl of low rank, a nobody, who tells wild stories about herself as easily as she breathes. If that isn’t a sign of mental disorder, I don’t know what is!’
Professor Ploomgate lifted his head. Closed his eyes. Then opened them again and took a sharp intake of breath. ‘In my professional opinion the girl is disturbed.’ He turned and patted old walnut head on the shoulder. ‘You were right to bring her here, Lady Elizabeth.’
‘She only wants to punish me,’ I said urgently. ‘This is about revenge, Professor, not the state of my mind. If you can’t see that, dear, then you’re the mental patient.’
Perhaps this wasn’t the best course of action. The professor walked from the cell, ignoring my loud protests.
‘Come, Matilda, let us go,’ said Lady Elizabeth.
‘Wait,’ said the girl.
She stepped close to me and I could see the hunger in her eyes. ‘Where is it, Pocket?’
And I knew just what she meant. The horrid girl searched my neck. And the pockets of my apron. And my dress.
‘What have you done with it?’ she hissed.
‘Rebecca is alive,’ I whispered, ‘and all you care about is the diamond that took her away. Shame on you, dear.’
Something flashed over her face. It was fleeting. But it was there.
She stomped towards the door. ‘I will meet you in the carriage, Grandmother.’
Lady Elizabeth scowled at me for the longest time. I slid down the wall and sat again. Staring at the opened door. Longing to pass through it and be free.
‘Does it soothe your guilt, Miss Pocket, to imagine that Rebecca has escaped death and lives on in some far-flung world?’ she said curtly.
‘Does it soothe your guilt to lock me up in this place?’
‘Why should I feel guilt?’
I looked up at her without fear. ‘Why were you not kinder? Why did you not try and understand about the clocks, about the piece of her that was missing?’
‘She looked in one piece to me,’ barked Lady Elizabeth. But she knew exactly what I meant. ‘The girl had lost her mother, did she need to lose her common sense as well?’ Her worn face hardened right before my eyes. ‘Rebecca needed a firm hand, not a soft touch.’
‘She needed you, dear. But instead of love you showered her with disapproval.’
‘Get comfortable, Miss Pocket,’ said the old bat, lifting her cane once more and pointing it at me, ‘for you are going to be an inmate at Lashwood for a very long time.’