Hastings House was always deadly sombre in between social occasions, with icy stone floors and damp, smoky rooms due to the tricky fireplaces and unreliable gas supply. The incessant rain had encouraged moss on the drive, and all day water chuckled noisily through the eaves.
Kept indoors the Dewhurst children grew irritable, and when their nurse took to bed with a cold they began to plague the rest of the household with their tantrums and whining. “They give me such headaches,” Christabel moaned, and she declared her sitting room off limits to anyone underage.
In an effort to make up for displeasing my sister at the card party I took it upon myself to entertain my nephews. I asked Bess to hang a sheet for shadow puppets. Bertie— named Albert for my father but given the nickname almost at birth—kept dodging around the sheet to see what I was doing, so the game became flapping our arms to make baby Alexander giggle at the wild shapes. Next we played with Bertie’s trains. His “jumpit car” was his favourite engine, a tin windup toy with a habit of leaping off its track and somersaulting through the air, sending both boys into fits of laughter. Curious about the malfunction I turned the toy over and found that it had been modified with gears and a set of tiny springs.
“Tom fixed it,” Bertie told me. “It got stuck, so Tom fixed it better than ever.”
When Alexander started to yawn I turned him over to Bess, found Bertie a sweater, and brought the boy downstairs in an effort to keep things quiet for the others. The cook had gone out, so I took the opportunity to make a cup of chocolate for my nephew. We perched on stools at the big work table with the copper pots hanging over our heads and watched the kitchen maid, her arms coated in flour to the elbows, roll out dough for pork pies. We watched her, that is, and she watched me—Sally had the same furtive, fascinated face all the servants at Hastings House wore in my presence, like a visitor to Bedlam waiting for the inmates to riot. Whatever might Mad Miss Mimic do next? What glimmer of insanity might I reveal to her, that she could tell about it later for the amusement of the servants’ table?
I kept silent and bore the scrutiny as best I could, for Bertie’s sake. His shoulders barely cleared the table, but for a three-year-old he looked very proud and grown-up in his sailor suit, spreading jam on his biscuit with the little knife I gave him and drinking his chocolate from an adult-sized teacup.
At last I convinced him to come away, and we set to exploring the hallways round the storerooms and servants’ quarters. Bertie found a hat by the side door that had fallen from a hook on the wall. “Put on it,” he commanded me, reaching for it with his fat little arms. I plunked it onto his head and laughed at the way it hid his eyes, but he tore it off again and stomped his foot. “Put on it, Leo!” he shouted.
“Shh, don’t b-boss,” I said, and I took the hat. Its swooping, unfashionable shape looked familiar—it was Mrs. Fayerweather’s, from our card party. The old lady must have left it behind by mistake, and the relentless rains had discouraged any of her servants from coming to claim it.
“Please put on it, Leo?” said Bertie, sweet as treacle.
So I donned the ridiculous bonnet and struck a haughty pose for him. “N-now then,” I began—and Mimic stepped in, chirping hoarsely in perfect memory of Mrs. Fayerweather’s voice: “Now then, young man, what lessons shall we learn today?”
Bertie’s eyes widened. “Rhymes!” he said.
“Shall we learn a rhyme? Very well, then.” I paced the hall, striking my heels against the stones. “Are you ready, Master Albert?”
“Yes, Lady!” Bertie stood at attention.
“I shall recite it first in full, and then you shall repeat it until you are fluent,” I ordered.
Learn well your grammar,
And never stammer,
Write well and neatly,
And sing most sweetly.
Line by line we repeated Lewis Carroll’s droll little lesson until Bertie was marching behind me, up and down the chilly hallways, shouting the lines without a single mistake:
This was my favourite of the poems Aunt Emma had taught me as a child at Kew, especially after she told me that Mr. Carroll, who also wrote my favourite book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, had wished for a career in the church but been held back by his severe stammer.
“‘Drink tea, not coffee! Never eat toffy! Eat bread with butter!’” we chanted. I don’t care if Sally should hear it, I thought, or Mrs. Nussey, or any of them. Mimic’s voice sang out of my throat like a rowdy aria, defiant in the face of the silences and stares of Hastings House.
Rounding a corner I nearly collided with a broadly grinning Tom Rampling.
“‘Once more, don’t stutter!’” Bertie’s momentum drove his little body full-force into the backs of my knees, and Tom grabbed my arms to steady me. Flushing, I tipped Mrs. Fayerweather’s hat into my hands.
“Please,” Tom said, “don’t stop on my account. Only, why mayn’t I eat toffee?”
Bertie squeezed between us. “Halloa, Tom!”
“Hello, Master Albert. Fine day, isn’t it?”
Bertie shook his head so vigorously that his hair stood up like milkweed fluff. “’Tisn’t. ’Tis raining manimals.”
I was mystified, but Tom understood him at once: “Animals. Like cats and dogs, do you mean?”
“Yes!” Bertie beamed up at him.
“Well. I’d better make use of this, then.” Tom took an umbrella from the hook. He bent to retrieve a crate of apothecary bottles and a spool of copper wire from the floor and tucked them under his arm. “Good day, Miss Somerville.”
My voice—Mimic’s, Mrs. Fayerweather’s—had fled. But the amusement lighting those grey eyes and the warmth under his words flooded me not with embarrassment but relief. Tom Rampling did not despise me! Well, he may think me very silly, I amended. But he didn’t bear me a grudge, at least. I supposed I was still conscience-stricken over Mimic’s use of Hattie, or it would not matter so much what Tom Rampling thought.
“Good day, Tom!” Bertie yelled out the door as the slim figure was swallowed by the rain.
When the weather finally cleared the next day, and Bess mentioned she had errands near Covent Garden, I leapt at the opportunity to escape the prison of Hastings House. My sister fretted at me about the Black Glove—hadn’t it been two weeks since the last attack, and wouldn’t the criminal gang decide that today was a fine day to bomb the markets— but Christa was going out too, to High Street with her lady friends, so she could hardly refuse me the same pleasure.
Each time Bess entered a shop I stayed outside under the awning or just beside the door and watched the lively bustle of workaday London. Oh, the city was a foul, noisy place! We’d travelled only ten minutes by carriage from the handsome streets surrounding Hastings, only a couple of dozen blocks, but we’d entered a different universe. Here the clatter of hooves and wooden wheels forced everyone to shout his business. The rain had turned all the horse muck to soup, so that clouds of flies gathered at the curbs. The red-jacketed boys dodging among traffic with pan and brush could not keep up with the filth and were coated in it to the thighs.
But the sun was shining, raising a steam of vapours from the damp buildings. A barrel-organ player had drawn a crowd. He had a green parrot tied to a perch, and when he turned the handle and the machine wheezed its tune, the bird flapped its wings and shrieked.
There are things I cannot say in any voice, not even with Mimic’s help. A blue dream of sky. White clouds like lace being tatted at one end and unravelled at the other. The clouds called out to the birds on the sills, and with whistles of rapture they took flight, hundreds and thousands of black wings hurled skyward. They flocked over the rooftops, now a fine, long line, now full as billowing sails. Freedom! Freedom! their cries promised, and for a moment I almost felt I could leap up into their midst with my skirts supporting me like a kite.
A well-dressed young couple stopped to hear the hurdy-gurdy, and I watched as the gentleman, laughing, used his walking stick to scrape something from the heel of his lady’s boot. Cabbage, I guessed, for wilted and rotten cabbages dotted the street where a produce cart had tipped. The lady, not much older than I, balanced against her husband with a gloved hand spread on his chest.
Freedom and protection! The two great gifts that only a husband of good standing could bring. Over these past days I’d tried not to dwell on my failure with Mr. Thornfax. In my weekly letter to my aunt Emma I hadn’t even mentioned it, though normally I hid nothing from her. Too good to be true, I told myself over and over, like a charm against undue disappointment. He was too good to be true. And I’d done my best to ignore the inner voice that added, You mean too good for you.
Now, though, I could not resist imagining Mr. Thornfax here on the street with me—tall, golden-haired, smiling. Perhaps he’d wear a beaver-lined overcoat like the gentleman across the street. When I closed my eyes to add detail to the daydream, however, I saw only Mr. Thornfax’s look of puzzlement at Mimic’s behaviour at the sight of poor Hattie lying on the floor. He hadn’t been frightened and upset with me, like Tom Rampling—but then, he had never known Hattie while she was alive, so Hattie’s voice from my mouth would have been not eerie, but only bizarre. Mad Miss Mimic.
I’d been able to discover very little about the girl’s death. A few days after her funeral I’d braved my brother-in-law’s study, but Daniel had offered no real answers. “Best not to dwell on our failures, little sister,” was all he would say.
“W-as it the fault of T-Tom Rampling, as he said on the night Hattie d-died?” I’d persisted.
Daniel shook his head. “To men of science, there can be no question of fault. Rampling is a good boy, and very clever in his way, but I’m afraid he has impractical notions. ‘Progress depends on practicality,’ I always need remind him. To assign fault only muddles the matter.”
The gentleman at the barrel organ was patting his jacket pockets and searching the curb. His young wife lifted her skirts to assist him. He turned about him with an accusing air,
then took her arm and moved rapidly off.
As I watched, another gentleman on my side of the street, about to climb into a carriage seat, suddenly jumped back with a shout.
“Thief! Hi!” he called to his driver, who leapt down and ran in pursuit of a small boy. I glimpsed bare, mud-splashed legs and a woollen cap. As the child dodged across the street I saw that it was the young boy from Daniel’s surgery, the one who had wailed so loudly and had to be dragged upstairs by Tom Rampling when Hattie died—Will, his name was. The shock of recognition and the oddness of the coincidence spurred me to leave my post and step into the street for a better look.
Caught by the collar, young Will had the presence of mind to drop the stolen pocket watch, and as the driver bent to retrieve it, he delivered the man a sharp kick to the shin and twisted free of his grip. With a series of curses the driver gave up and went to return the watch to his master. Will wove and darted this way and that among the shuffle of fruit stands and sidewalk-sellers. I managed to keep him in sight by walking fast and staying a distance back so as not to alert him to my presence. I sidestepped garbage and horse-piles, twisting to avoid the parasols and packages of shoppers, keeping always before my eyes the little brown cap and the flash of bare white knees.
Will turned down James Street, cut across an alley, rounded two sharp corners, and scampered the length of a row of cattle stalls. He must have declared himself beyond danger then, for he dropped to a slow trot. I was growing very warm in my embroidered jacket and shoved my bonnet back from my head. My shoes were not meant for such an escapade; twice I nearly turned an ankle on the slippery cobbles.
The streets narrowed and, in places, were nearly blocked where window shutters stood open. The clamour of the market gave way to the crying of babies and the baying of dogs. Coal smoke and the stench of sewage choked the air. We went down a stone staircase and crossed a courtyard with high, mudded walls, stables, and a dovecote. Will turned into a narrower alley still. If I entered after him, it would be obvious I was chasing him.
“Will! D-do stop!” I called. “I m-must speak with you!”
The boy paused and turned. I knew he recognized me by the way he tilted his head, frightened but also curious. He’d heard me use Hattie’s voice, after all. I closed the distance and went to one knee before him so that our faces were level. Dirt streaked his cheeks, and his sandy hair fell into his eyes. I resisted the urge to tuck it under his cap.
With dismay I spied in Will’s pocket the round impression of another gentleman’s watch. During the chase I’d nearly convinced myself that the theft was the impulsive mischief of a wild boy. He’d been standing very still but now, following my eyes to the evidence of his crime, he gave a little quiver, as might a rabbit cornered in the garden. “They’s for Tom, mum, I swear to you!” he said, so quickly that it was a moment before I understood.
“Why does T-Tom need p-pocket-watches?”
“I can’t say, mum. If Tom’s nicked he’ll be sent to Aus-tray-lia!” Will’s eyes grew round as he invoked the name of that terrifying country.
“If you’re c-caught it will go b-badly for you as well,” I reminded him.
He drew himself up in a ragged approximation of pride. “I’m never caught!” he declared.
Until that moment I’d been driven by nothing but a kind of urgent curiosity. Now I was overcome with confusion and doubt. Tom Rampling wasn’t a thief. He seemed so dutiful, so serious, always. And I’d seen his gentleness with children; he would never trade on the naïve bravado of a child for such a base and cowardly purpose. Would he?
Young Will took advantage of my hesitation and darted farther down the alley, vanishing through a narrow archway.
I followed, wondering whether the boy was meeting Tom directly. Past the arch the alley dropped downhill. Boards were laid over runnels of oozing mud, and I had to go gingerly, steadying my balance against the brick wall. Farther down the slope the way was blocked by an overturned wagon. I realized there was nowhere Will could have gone but through a curtained doorway I had already passed on my right.
I turned back just as a girl emerged from behind the curtain. Her soiled bodice revealed much of her bosom, and her hair hung in coils over her heavily rouged cheeks. She leered at me through scarlet-painted lips. “You lost, mum?”
“I … I w-was at Covent G-Garden,” I said, stupidly. “I’m l-looking for young W-Will.”
“Ain’ no ‘young Will’ here, mum,” she said. “Not when he comes home all inna fright, nohow. I’m his sister. You’s speakin’ to me, not him.”
“He s-stays at Hastings House, with Dr. D-Dewhurst,” I tried to explain.
The girl’s blue eyes widened. “Is it you, the one Tom tells about? The stumbletongue girl? Is you, ain’ it?”
I coloured in confusion.
She put her hands on her hips. “Tom Rampling. My sweetheart,” she enunciated, as if explaining to a small, stupid child. “He works for Dew’urst, too. He tol’ us all about you. How they keep you penned up in that big house, an’ treat you hard. You ain’ altogether as pretty a thing as he likes to tell it, mind.”
She was interrupted by a low snarl, and a toothy snout emerged beside her as a massive dog advanced, growling, toward me. I backed hastily against the opposite wall.
“Oh, don’ mind him, there. Rufus! Drop off it!” the painted girl yelled, spurring the hound to intersperse his growls with wheezing barks and ferocious snaps of his jaws.
A shout echoed within the house, and the girl called into the darkness over her shoulder. “Aye, Mrs. Clampitt! Here’s a lady after our Will!”
Sweeping aside the curtain, an aged parody of the younger woman emerged into the alley. She wore grey ringlets, and her rouged mouth made a thin circle of red around gapped and blackened teeth. Shrivelled breasts were propped and puckered into a semblance of cleavage, with a yellowed lace kerchief spilling from between them.
“What’s here?” Mrs. Clampitt said. “Ah, Daisy, you’ve found a lost lamb!” She threw her arms wide, revealing a dark stain on each armpit of her gown. “And what a pretty, nervous thing. White as snow, this one! What soft fleece.”
“She’s the one as Tom tol’ us,” said Daisy, sounding rather sullen about it now.
I slid a few inches along the bricks, the rough surface catching at my jacket. The dog stalked me, stiff-legged, snarling. Saliva pooled between his front feet.
Mrs. Clampitt advanced, too. “Don’t be skittish, lass; there’s a good girl. Rufus can smell fear. Dogs, you know, can’t help but take an interest in a lamb. You best come in now. Come and rest your poor feet. Godssakes, and just look at those shoes for walking!”
“D-does M-Mr. Rampling live here?” I said.
Mrs. Clampitt took my arm. “That boy is family to us, even since he’s gone up in the world. After his poor mamma died in that jail ’twas me took him in, you know. Him and Daisy here grew up like twins, they did. You come in now, and I’ll tell you it all.”
Daisy drew aside the curtain, and I stared into the dank interior. A man with a red face and a crooked nose sat with a glass and bottle on the table in front of him; beyond him I could see nothing but shadows. Fear bloomed in my belly. I knew I could not enter that dark space.
I took another step sideways along the wall and cowered behind my arms as the dog lunged forward. I heard a thud and a whine. I peeped out to see Rufus slink beneath Mrs. Clampitt’s skirt.
Beside me stood a whip-thin man with lank hair and drooping whiskers. Where he had come from I could not say. The man carried a stick, which he swept in an arc to show me how he’d struck the dog.
“Now, Mr. Sears, this here’s our guest,” said Mrs. Clampitt. “It’s Dr. Dewhurst’s sister-in-law, ain’t that right, lass?”
“’Tain’t no guest o’ yours,” the man sneered. He took hold of my arm, leaning close to my face, and I closed my eyes against his fetid breath on my cheek. “Dewhurst’s kin, izzit? I wonder what ’e’d say to us ’avin’ her. I wonder, wouldn’t ’e offer us ’is services at a greatly reduced price, if we was to inform ’im?”
I crossed my arms and gripped my elbows to curb my trembling. “P-please, l-let me g-go.”
“You daft man.” Mrs. Clampitt clucked, sounding more amused than angered by his scheming. “Kidnapping won’t pay for your morbid cravings. That doctor’s got us all over his barrel, and well you know it!”
“Aye, but maybe we’ll send ’im a token, at least. Give us your purse, love,” he said, and snatched my reticule from my hand.
“Please, I have n-nothing.”
This produced giggles from Daisy and Mrs. Clampitt. “Oh, my poor lamb,” the woman crooned. “But you have so much! Your lovely pelisse, for one.”
“And that bonnet,” added Mr. Sears. “Share with us, and we’ll let you be quick on your way.”
I shook my head more vigorously. The dog had commenced barking again, this time in excitement. More girls were pouring through the doorway now, each painted and costumed like Daisy.
“Would ye need ’elp?” Mr. Sears suggested, reaching for my hair. I shook him off and yanked on the ribbons to release my bonnet into his hands. Then, terrified beyond reason and stupidly eager to believe his lie about letting me go, I shrugged out of my jacket and tossed it to Mrs. Clampitt.
Mr. Sears drew a sharp breath. “Them’s pearl buttons on that dress!” And with a twist of his filthy fingers he plucked one from my waist.
One of the girls darted forward and made a snatch at a button. She received a blow from Mr. Sears’s stick. Mrs. Clampitt slapped him hard in retaliation—and then I was crowded all round by grasping, tearing hands. Lace, buttons, and hairpins were torn away, and I couldn’t breathe for the panic pressing in my chest.
“Her shoes!”
I was shoved into the bricks, my shoulder scraping the rough surface as I fell. My forehead hit the downspout, and my vision wavered and dimmed.
I opened my mouth and screamed, and did not—found that I could not—stop.