I placed the books on a long reading table swarming with poorly groomed history professors and stared at Matilda in bewilderment. I’m certain I looked gorgeously gobsmacked. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
The girl scowled at me from beneath her dark fringe. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but Mother and I are in London to escape Butterfield Park – we simply couldn’t stand it a moment longer.’
I nodded as the sadness bubbled up inside me. ‘You miss Rebecca.’
‘Rebecca?’ Matilda frowned. Then sighed. ‘Oh, that. Yes, it’s all terribly sad, but people die every day and there’s no shame in it. What’s really made life unbearable is my birthday ball and we both know whose fault that is, don’t we, Pocket?’
‘You mustn’t blame yourself, dear,’ I said.
‘Myself?’ spat Matilda, stomping her foot (which attracted a great deal of disapproving looks from the history professors). ‘It’s you, Pocket! I should wring your neck! What sort of idiot falls from a chandelier into a birthday cake? Now the entire county is laughing behind my back.’
‘I admit that I may have caused a slight disruption, but that is what has made your party so special. For it now has something money cannot buy – infamy.’
The girl’s gaze narrowed. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Well, it’s really very simple. Your birthday will be talked about for decades to come. I’m almost certain it won’t be the last party to have a heartbreakingly pretty girl falling from a great height into the birthday cake, but it will always be the first, and that makes it terribly unique.’
Matilda’s eyes began to dance. ‘I see them whispering when I go into the village. Yes, they stare and gossip, because my birthday ball was the most exciting thing that has ever happened in their dreary little lives.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m almost certain they stare and gossip because you’re hideously unpleasant. But they won’t soon forget your birthday ball and surely that is all that matters?’
The history professors were now openly pointing at us and muttering to one another. Talking was frowned upon in the reading room. And as the library was my one refuge from funerals and deathbeds, I grabbed Matilda by the arm and made a hasty retreat.
The midday sun shimmered over the grand building’s stonework, making the ground sparkle like gemstones as we made our way down the main stairs. Matilda was grumbling about having to meet her mother at a nearby hotel for lunch.
‘Is Lady Elizabeth with you?’ I asked.
Matilda stopped at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Grandmother said she did not feel well enough to travel – but I do not believe her.’
This provided me with an opportunity to ask a question that had been troubling me a great deal. ‘How is she?’
‘Broken,’ came the faint reply. Then the sharp edges returned to her voice. ‘Butterfield Park is closed to visitors and Grandmother won’t see anyone apart from her doctor. Mother says she is just sad, but I think she’s selfish. My cousin is gone and she isn’t coming back – must we all wear black and bow our heads forever?’
‘You do miss Rebecca … don’t you?’
Matilda looked over the parklands beyond us. ‘Do you still have it?’
‘Have what?’
‘The necklace.’
‘Oh. I have it somewhere or other.’
‘Mother thinks the stone killed Rebecca, but what do you think, Pocket?’
A peal of laughter flew from me (I hoped it was convincing). ‘Whoever heard of a diamond killing someone?’
‘Why don’t you sell it, then?’ said Matilda, looking scornfully at my dreary apron and hobnail boots. ‘If you bought some new clothes and fixed yourself up, someone might actually want you in their family.’
I shrugged. ‘I already have one of those.’
‘You do?’
‘Oh yes. Lovely couple. Successful in business. Pretty house. They shower me with so much love and affection I’m practically gasping for air. I even have an older sister. Gretel’s in Paris right now at finishing school and I expect Mother Snagsby will send me there too when I come of age.’
A sly smile creased her ruby lips. ‘Things turned out rather well for you, didn’t they?’
‘Splendidly well, dear. Couldn’t be happier.’
Then Matilda walked away. Without so much as a goodbye.
‘Perhaps we could meet for tea?’ I called after her. ‘Or a walk around Hyde Park? I’m frightfully busy, of course, but I just happen to have the next seven or eight weeks free!’
Matilda didn’t even turn around. ‘I don’t think so, Pocket.’
The walk home was rather bleak. On most days, Rebecca was never far from my thoughts – but now, after seeing Matilda, it all came back in hideous detail. Her death had been so beastly. All she ever wanted was to see her mother again. That was why she had put on the Clock Diamond. But Miss Frost made it clear that Rebecca’s soul had been spirited away to Prospa and that even in death, there would be no reunion between mother and daughter. Knowing that I had brought that cursed necklace to Butterfield Park was a knot in my stomach that would never untangle.
I was feeling so sorry for myself that I nearly walked straight past the old woman crying up a storm in the middle of the footpath. She had white hair beneath a lace cap. A bruise on her temple. Milky eyes. And she was rather dead.
The frazzled creature shrieked when I asked her what was the matter.
‘You can hear me?’ she cried. ‘But I’ve talked to Mrs Denton next door and Miss Wilcox at the grocer, and they looked right through me! But you, you can see me.’ She threw her arms towards the sky. ‘Thank the stars! I thought I was dead!’
‘You are. Dead as a fence post.’
She gasped. Looked rather unconvinced. ‘How can you be sure?’
I looked down at the ground and pointed to her feet. ‘You’re floating, dear.’
The ghost looked down and saw that she was indeed hovering just above the cobblestones. ‘Well, I never,’ she muttered. ‘The last thing I remember is stepping up on a chair to reach the pickled herring on the top shelf. Oh, I do love a pickled herring.’
‘I’m almost certain you fell off the chair, bumped your head, and promptly died.’
The ghost gasped again. Spun around. Stopped. Looked rather crestfallen. Pointed to the sky. ‘I always imagined that when it was my time, I’d go up there.’
‘I’m no expert, but it seems to take longer for some spirits than for others. Eventually you will see a light of some kind. It will be gloriously warm and inviting. Go to it and I think you will find what you are looking for – until then, why not visit the theatre?’
She seemed rather thrilled by the idea and hurried off, leaving a puff of starlight in her wake. I went on my way again, the street crowded with pedlars and vendors haggling with customers over the price of apples and bread and flowers. I checked my watch – the Snagsbys were soon to be home from visiting Ezra’s sister – and I hadn’t finished any of my chores. So I decided that a shortcut was in order.
I stepped off the footpath to start across the street, just as a carriage came charging down the road towards me. I halted. Stepped back. As I waited for it to pass, my gaze travelled to the other side of the road. Which is when I saw her. The woman staring back at me. Her glare was of the ravenous kind. Her fierce eyes fixed on mine. The carriage tore past me in a blur, blowing a violent gust of wind in my face. I blinked. Then desperately searched the footpath opposite.
But Miss Always had vanished without a trace.
My bedroom door was locked at night. From the outside. This was done for my protection. Apparently, Paddington was teeming with criminals – robbers, kidnappers, assassins. All very unpleasant and dangerous for a newly adopted daughter. So I was locked in. Mother Snagsby kept the key around her neck. A second copy was kept by Mrs Dickens, in a bunch that dangled from a hoop attached to her belt.
That evening I had been sent to my room without supper. Punishment for not completing my chores. I wasn’t bothered. My mind was a tempest of worry. Miss Always. I had seen Miss Always across the street. How on earth had she found me? Did she know where I lived? Was she coming after me?
I heard a key turn in the lock. The door opened and Mrs Dickens came in carrying a tray. On it were four potatoes, a quarter of pumpkin and a slice of chocolate cake. God bless Mrs Dickens! She had worked for the Snagsbys since the beginning of time and was suitably plump. Face like a walrus. Drank like a fish. But beneath her chubby cheeks and purple nose beat a heart of gold.
‘I expect you’re hungry, lass,’ she said, putting down the tray. She looked around the room and shook her head. ‘I might ask Mrs Snagsby if we could put up some pretty curtains or a bright cover for your bed. A girl your age needs a little colour.’
My bedroom was at the back of the house on the third floor. Just a small bed, a chair, a chest of drawers and a plain side table with the battered silver clock I had taken from Rebecca’s bedroom atop it. Exactly what you would expect for a treasured new daughter. It was true that there was a very pretty bedroom on the second floor right next to the Snagsbys. It had bright red wallpaper, a marble fireplace, a glorious brass bed and its very own dressing room. But that belonged to Gretel. And no one was allowed inside.
‘A touch of colour might be nice,’ I said.
‘Of course, Mrs Snagsby might not agree,’ said Mrs Dickens, running her apron over the top of the dresser, ‘though I can’t see how she could object as this room hasn’t had a lick of paint since Miss –’
The housekeeper stopped suddenly. Cleared her throat.
‘Since Miss what, dear?’ I said.
‘Well … your parents let out this room a long time ago,’ said Mrs Dickens rather quickly, ‘and the last lodger who stayed here was Miss … Miss Lucas.’
‘Did she have red hair?’
Mrs Dickens turned around. ‘How did you know that, lass?’
‘Found her hairbrush in the drawer along with a pair of black gloves.’ I sighed with just the right amount of melancholy. ‘Mrs Dickens, I knew a woman with the most ghastly red hair. She was grim and sour-faced and I disliked her very much. At least, I thought I did.’
‘You best eat your supper and get to sleep,’ said the housekeeper. ‘And mind you don’t let your mother know I sneaked this food in, you hear?’
But I didn’t reply right away. For there was a sudden heat radiating against my chest like splash of midday sun. I hurried Mrs Dickens from the room. Promised her I would eat my supper and get a good night’s rest. I could hear the door being locked as I raced back to the bed and fished the Clock Diamond out from under my nightdress.
A thrill rippled through my body as I stared deep into the heart of the stone. At first all that I saw were the stars in the moonless sky above London. But I waited. I knew, absolutely knew, that something was coming. Perhaps it would offer a vision about Miss Always. A clue of some sort.
The diamond throbbed in my hand. Heat pulsed from it like a furnace. Then a white mist churned in the heart of the stone, swallowing the night sky. In its place, a forest of dark trees. Frost-covered ground. The mist blew with a fury and the trees began to bleed white, seeping up from the roots to the ends of the bare branches. In moments the whole forest was a ghostly white woodland.
Something streaked between the trees. A girl. Running. She wore a lavender dress. Blonde hair fanning out behind her. I recognised her instantly. Which is why I cried, ‘Rebecca!’
It was her. Unmistakably her. Was this some fragment of her past? She was running. Twisting through the pale trees. Stealing looks behind her. Terrified looks. Then the trees began to move. No, not trees. Locks – those hooded henchmen in dark cloaks who worked for Miss Always. They moved as one. Dozens of them, fanning out through the forest.
The girl stumbled. Fell. I saw her flinch with pain. She got to her feet and took off again. In a flash her face filled the stone. Just for a second. Cheeks flushed. Brow knotted anxiously. Eyes crackling with fear. And then it hit me. Rebecca was wearing the same lavender dress she had worn to Matilda’s birthday ball. Her new dress. Which could only mean one thing – Rebecca was alive! Somehow. Some way. She was alive. And something more. Something monstrous. Rebecca Butterfield was being hunted.
