24

Rose lay awake in the narrow bed watching the moonlight spill through the bars of the window. She could see bodies hunched under blankets in other beds. She was regretting her final moments with Thomas before the door of Ivanhoe House had clanged behind him. He had been so desperate for her forgiveness, but she had turned away from him. When he had tried to kiss her goodbye she had pulled away.

“Goodbye, Mr Skimblebanks,” said Dr Fogg, standing up behind his desk in the study and moving round to Thomas and pressing his hand. He started to guide Thomas towards the door. Seizing her chance, Rose leaned forward and grabbed a sheet of headed notepaper. Dr Fogg was too busy trying to ease Thomas out of the study door to notice as Rose folded it swiftly and stuffed it up her knickerbockers. “I can assure you that you are leaving Sophia in the safest of hands. I am certain that you will notice a pleasing difference in her behaviour when you next see her.” He glanced back at Rose standing behind them, her face all innocence, and determined to break this rich, spoiled, wayward girl.

“I shall come and visit my daughter often,” said Thomas. They had reached the hall with its tiled black-and-white chequered floor. Two nurses appeared and flanked Rose, a little too close for comfort.

Dr Fogg’s meaty lips stretched themselves into an oily smile.

“We do not recommend any contact for the first three months. We find that patients settle better without too much of a reminder of their old way of life.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Sophia is my daughter and I am paying for her stay here. Paying generously, I might add. I shall come and see her whenever I so desire.”

“As you wish, sir,” said Dr Fogg tightly.

At the door, Thomas turned to Rose. “It won’t be for long, Sophia, I promise. I shall come by tomorrow before noon and check that all is well and you have settled.”

Rose said nothing. She was no longer sure if she was acting or simply projecting her real feelings. Thomas stepped out into sunshine and she saw his shadow through the glass panels in the door, walking away from her.

Dr Fogg turned to the two nurses. They grabbed Rose by the arms.

“You will have to go easy on this one,” he said curtly, “until her father loses interest in her.” He put his face close to Rose and said silkily, “They do lose interest, you know, Sophia. We have had people here for years, girls just like you whose fathers or husbands find them too much to handle. They give them over to us and after a while it just seems to slip their minds that they left them here. It’s so much more convenient for everyone that way.”

Now, lying in the moonlight as she waited for the house to fall silent so that she could look for Grace, Rose regretted that she hadn’t given Thomas a little sign that she had forgiven him and shown him how much she loved him. She sat up in bed and listened. The moans and coughs had finally died away. Even the nurse at the end of the ward was snoring, her cap slipped across her eyes. She must find Grace. There had been no sign of her all day. But at supper she’d been given a clue when she’d overheard a conversation between two of the maids.

“I’ve got to climb those bloomin’ stairs all the way to the third floor with a tray again,” grumbled one. “That new one that was brought in screaming and kicking yesterday ain’t settling. Me poor legs will suffer for it. We need ’elp. They’ve ’ad that notice for a new maid on the back door for ages and nobody has answered it. Nobody wants to work in a mad ’ouse. I’m rushed off me feet.”

Rose hardly felt the cold linoleum as she stealthily crossed the room. Downstairs, beyond the imposing hall with its black-and-white tiles, Ivanhoe House was plush and carpeted, but away from any of the rooms that visitors might see, all expense had been spared.

Rose crept like a cat across the floor. She turned the handle of the ward door and it opened. She was not surprised. Everyone was so docile here there was no need to lock them in at night. She suspected most were being given laudanum. She checked the corridor and then padded upstairs. She heard a shriek and froze, before realising that it was only a fox outside. She tried a door, but the bed in the room was empty. She heard a noise at the end of the corridor and stayed in the empty room.

Two nurses walked by, talking. “That new one, Grace, is another of Easingford’s relatives, just like old Sarah who’s been here forever.”

Rose suppressed a gasp. Sarah? Wasn’t that the name of the younger Dorset sister?

Could it be that Sarah Easingford, Henry’s wife, was an inmate too?

Rose waited until the voices faded. Then she tiptoed along the corridor and opened the door at the end. A shaft of moonlight fell on the iron bedstead and the figure strapped to the bed with leather belts. Grace turned her head and looked at Rose, her eyes dark with fear.

“Rose,” she whispered. “Have they got you too? Oh, Rose, Rose. We are going to rot in here and die, and nobody will ever know.” Her eyes darkened further. “Freddie?”

“He’s safe and we’re not going to rot and die,” said Rose firmly. “I’m here to get you out. Thomas is coming back for me tomorrow, and we’ll get you released as quickly as we can. I promise you, Grace.”

She produced the headed notepaper and a pencil from her knickerbockers, undid the straps and made Grace sign the short note she’d written earlier.

“Grace, did Ned ever mention somebody called Lord Easingford?” she said as she retied the straps.

Grace looked puzzled, but then she said, “No, but there was a funny thing happened in Oxford one night after the show. This real posh type seemed to think he knew Ned. Called him Easingford – Ed Easingford. He got quite nasty when Ned said he was mistaken. Shouted something about Ned being barmy and that it ran in the family. Afterwards Ned said the man must have mistaken him for someone else. But I could see he was rattled.”

“That’s––” began Rose. The fox screamed outside again, making both of them jump. “I’d better get back to my bed,” she said. “If I’m caught it’ll be the worse for both of us. Grace, you’ll soon be free. I’ll give Thomas this paper tomorrow and we’ll have you out in a blink.”

Thomas had sent his letter to Reverend Woldingham and was now searching through an old trunk in a small room off the props store. It was where he kept his most personal possessions. Nothing valuable that anyone might want to steal, but the things that he held dear. There were his old school books; the hat he had worn for his wedding to poor dear, dead Maud; his twins’ cribs.

Thomas was worried and upset. He had felt uneasy ever since returning from the asylum in Balham. He should never have left Rose there. It had been a mad idea. But once Rose had decided something, dissuading her was like trying to take a bone off a terrier.

But he hated leaving Rose, particularly when she was so angry with him. He couldn’t bear to think of the way she had stood so stiffly when he had gone to hug her goodbye, and how small and wan she had looked as he’d turned to wave before the door banged behind him. It had seemed so final, as if he might never see her again. He so wished he had told her about what happened when she was a baby before yesterday.

He reached down further into the trunk and his hand grasped what he was looking for: two halves of an old, worn swaddling sheet. Gently, he pulled them out. The material was fragile, but to his relief it was still intact. The moths had stayed away. He studied one sheet and then the other. They were threadbare but anyone could see the quality: the stitching was so delicate. He held one half-sheet up to the light and gave a tiny gasp of surprise. In the very corner, stitched in white thread so it was almost invisible, was a tiny butterfly. He picked up the other half of the sheet and saw the same butterfly motif. The butterfly was the emblem of the Easingford family.

The babies had each been wrapped in this sheet. The babies! Maybe Ned had been asking after “the babies” for a reason. He thought of the envelope with Oliver Dorset’s address on it and the names scrawled on the back. Ned had written Rose and? Had Ned—

He heard a sound behind him. He turned round, and as he glimpsed the face in front of him, the past came rushing back.

“You!” he said in astonishment. “It was you!” He tried to get to his feet, and as he did so, a cricket bat hit him on the side of the head. After that he saw and felt nothing.