‘Oh, yes, I see.’ The monthly courses were referred to as visits from Lady Montrose in my family due to a rather awful aunt of my mother’s whose regular visits had been a source of much annoyance to her as a young girl.
Mrs Smith-Welsh leaned forward and took my free hand. ‘I am so sorry that I couldn’t be more helpful, my dear,’ she said kindly. ‘I think you should know though that she spoke about you all the time.’
A tear snaked down my cheek. ‘I wish that I had known,’ I whispered. ‘I have thought her lost for all these years.’
‘And now she is lost in truth,’ Mrs Smith-Welsh reminded me gently. ‘Do you have any idea where she might have gone?’
I hesitated then shook my head. ‘I thought that I had an idea but now I am not so sure.’ I looked at her and then down at my hands. ‘You see, until now I had believed that she had simply vanished and that no one knew where she was. I was warned at the time not to ever mention it as it was too distressing for my mother but I have always believed or rather assumed that my family exhausted the usual official channels while trying to find her and then, having drawn a blank, decided to carry on with their lives as best they could.’ I clasped my hands together and looked back up at her again. ‘I have only known the truth for a few weeks and was relieved to think that I had been mistaken and that she has been safe and alive all along.’ I looked at Patrick and he took both of my hands in his. ‘It is very hard to think that I have lost her again.’
Mrs Smith-Welsh sighed. ‘I am so sorry, my dear, to be the bearer of sad tidings.’ She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and gave a little shrug. ‘I often think that families are so silly about such things. If only someone had told you the truth at the outset then none of this would have happened, would it?’
I wasn’t so sure about that - after all, Beatrice was genuinely missing and I was now absolutely certain that someone in Whitechapel knew what had happened to her. I stood up abruptly, almost upsetting the tea things and looked down at Mrs Smith-Welsh with a frigid smile. ‘If it is not too much trouble, I wonder if perhaps I might see where my sister lived while she was here?’
I could see that it was on the tip of the other woman’s tongue to refuse me but then she gave an unwilling nod. ‘I’m not sure how that will help but I will gladly oblige you, Miss Redmayne,’ she said, looking not at all glad, in fact quite the reverse. She looked to Patrick, who had also risen to his feet. ‘I think that perhaps you should remain here, Lord Brennan. I do not mean to be discourteous but some of our young ladies can be somewhat excitable in the presence of gentlemen.’
Under better circumstances, Patrick and I would have had a good laugh over the idea of his presence causing young ladies to become excitable but as it was he just gave a grim little nod and saw us on our way before resuming his place by the fire, stretching his long legs out in front of him and helping himself to a hefty slice of seed cake, scattering crumbs all over himself and the floor as he did so.
Chapter Twenty Four
‘You say that you have thirty young ladies here,’ I said as I followed Mrs Smith-Welsh across the hall and then up the sweeping white wooden staircase that led to the upper floors of the house. ‘Are they all free to walk about as they please?’ As we climbed the stairs, I could hear distant sounds of laughter, singing and someone playing a piano rather incompetently with many dropped notes but much enthusiasm.
Mrs Smith-Welsh sighed. ‘Not all, no,’ she admitted, absent mindedly patting a bunch of keys that swung at her waist. ‘Many of our young ladies are temporary boarders who have been sent here by their families to get some rest but most of the others are, well…’ her voice trailed away as she led me down a long bright corridor that was lit from above by a series of large skylights that allowed in the mellow autumnal sunlight. ‘There is no obvious difference in their treatment but we have specialist staff on hand to deal with them if there is any need for restraint or therapy.’
‘You said that a maid let my sister out of her room,’ I said, hurrying alongside her. Mrs Smith-Welsh was an uncommonly fast walker. ‘Do you lock all of the girls in at night?’
She turned and looked at me in surprise. ‘Oh yes, Miss Redmayne,’ she said. ‘Of course we do! Although we like to give the impression that this is a nice cosy country house, the fact remains that our young ladies are still patients and have been sent here for their own good. Their families pay handsomely to have them here and trust us to ensure that they are properly cared for, which is a responsibility that we take very seriously.’ She sniffed. ‘Certainly our security arrangements failed when it came to your sister but we were not to blame for that and have taken measures to ensure that such a thing will never happen again.’
She stopped at a door at the very end of the corridor and after pressing her head to the wood for a second, gave a sigh and knocked. ‘As your sister wasn’t considered to be a danger to herself or others, she was lodged here in the main house. The more, shall we say, erratic of our ladies are lodged together in one of the side wings of the house, where they are cared for and treated by more specialised staff.’
‘You mean doctors?’ I said, feeling sick at heart and also rather afraid although I couldn’t quite explain why. Perhaps it was all down to the odd atmosphere in the house but I found myself wondering if our visit was a ruse to get me here without any fuss so that I too could be incarcerated until I agreed to marry Patrick. I imagined myself beating my hands against a barred window as he vanished from sight in the carriage then gave myself a little shake. What nonsense.
Mrs Smith-Welsh nodded. ‘We have four doctors on site permanently and a consultant in London who comes to help with the more complicated cases.’ She stepped back as the door was suddenly opened and a young woman, perhaps just a couple of years older than myself, appeared and looked at us both curiously.
‘Yes?’ she said rather abruptly with a Scottish accent, her eyes running over me before returning to Mrs Smith-Welsh with a hostility that I entirely appreciated for I was rather feeling it myself. ‘I was reading.’
‘I hope you don’t mind, Miss Fairchild, but I was wondering if perhaps I could just quickly show Miss Redmayne here your room?’ She was effusive with her politeness and I discerned at once that she was a little afraid of Miss Fairchild, a rather rawboned creature with bright blue eyes and flaming red hair that she wore pulled back in a severe chignon that did nothing to soften her features. ‘Her sister stayed here you see and she has expressed a wish to see it for herself.’ She gave a fluttering laugh that I guessed was supposed to indicate how foolish my request was and how sorry she was to have to give in to it.
Miss Fairchild however had given a small start at the mention of my name and turned to me with rather more warmth. ‘So you’re Beatrice’s sister then?’ she said, looking me over again. ‘You don’t look much like her, do you?’
I smiled and shook my head. ‘No, not in the slightest. My nursemaid always used to joke that I was a changeling baby that had been left in the night by fairies as nothing else could account for how different I was to the rest of my family.’
Miss Fairchild looked me up and down then silently stood aside so that we could enter her room, which was large and cheerfully decorated and overlooked the garden at the back of the house. She had been telling the truth about being interrupted reading as there were several books, mostly forbidding looking tomes about science and nature, scattered all over the colourful patchwork quilt that covered the bed. The rest of the room was messy but not lamentably so, with books covering virtually every available flat surface and very little trinkets of the usual sort to be seen other than a photograph of a harsh faced elderly man, presumably her father, that stood on the dressing table alongside a pot of face cream, a glass bottle of lavender water and a rather elderly silver backed brush with a few fiery strands still caught between the bristles.
‘What a lovely room,’ I exclaimed sincerely, feeling the sadness that had gripped me since we first arrived at Panacea House begin to
lighten a little. I crossed to the window and looked down over the garden where the other girls were still walking together. In the distance I could see trees and soaring above them what I believed to be the spire of Rayleigh Church. ‘You have such a nice view.’
Miss Fairchild gave a graceless shrug. ‘It’s all very well if you like that sort of thing,’ she said grumpily. ‘I’d much rather be at home in Scotland.’ She shot an accusatory look at Mrs Smith-Welsh who fluttered her hands nervously.
‘All in good time, Miss Fairchild,’ she said soothingly. ‘Your mother has written to say that you may return for Christmas if you are willing to compromise a little.’
‘I’ll be here forever then,’ Miss Fairchild said truculently.
‘Let us hope not,’ the other woman replied crisply. ‘When will you girls learn that it is easier by far to use honey to trap flies? You won’t gain anything to your advantage with a sour disposition and these childish acts of rebellion.’ She sounded really quite aggrieved and I looked at her with interest, breaking off my perusal of the pretty matching wallpaper and curtains, both of which were decorated with huge blooming pink and blue roses. ‘Honestly, my dear, could you not unbend just a little?’
Miss Fairchild gave a harsh laugh and turned away to pick up one of her books. ‘I am afraid that unbending is not something that I have ever felt able to do,’ she said gently. ‘It is not in my nature to bend like a reed, to dance for the amusement of others, to pin a smile on my face and do as I am told. Yes, of course my life would be easier if I could only bring myself to do so but perhaps I don’t want an easy life?’
‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Smith-Welsh said briskly. ‘Utter nonsense.’ She turned to me, having clearly washed her hands of Miss Fairchild, who had retreated back to her bed and calmly opened the book she held in her hand as if we had already gone. ‘Have you seen everything that you wanted to see, Miss Redmayne?’
I nodded, feeling a little embarrassed and suddenly desperate to leave. ‘Yes, I think so.’ I looked apologetically at Miss Fairchild and found that she was looking directly at me with a small smile hovering about her thin lips. ‘I am so sorry for intruding,’ I said. ‘I do hope that I haven’t inconvenienced you.’
She gave a grim little nod. ‘Not in the slightest, Miss Redmayne,’ she said. ‘In fact it is interesting to finally meet you as Beatrice spoke so often about you.’ I was just thinking that ‘interesting’ was an odd choice of word to use when she hurried on as if fearful of being stopped. ‘We were friends, you see or at least as friendly as one gets to be in a place like this. I liked her a great deal anyway and was sorry when she left.’
‘Do you know where she was going?’ I asked impulsively, ignoring Mrs Smith-Welsh’s look of annoyance.
The girl hesitated and bit her lip then shook her head. ‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘She spoke often about going back to London but that’s a common refrain here, I’m afraid. We all have somewhere that we would much rather be.’
‘I can well imagine,’ I said with a smile before holding out my hand to her which after a moment she took. ‘I do hope that your stay here will be a short one,’ I said, rather liking her despite her prickly ways and wishing that we could be alone together so that I could ask her more questions about my sister.
‘Oh, I rather doubt that, don’t you?’ she said breezily and I remembered that if she had known my sister then she had been at Panacea House for at least a year if not longer already.
Mrs Smith-Welsh gave an impatient little cough and after one last regretful squeeze of the other girl’s hand, I allowed her to hustle me out of the room and close the door behind us. She paused for a second outside and touched the keys at her waist as if considering locking Miss Fairchild into her room but then gave a haughty toss of her head and instead motioned that I should follow her back down the corridor.
‘I am so sorry about that,’ she said as I hastened to keep up with her brisk pace. ‘Miss Fairchild is a rather frustrating case, I’m afraid. Her mother is widowed and the family estate and title turned out to be entailed upon a distant male cousin.’ She sighed heavily. ‘It is often thus, I believe. However, in this case, the cousin, quite unaccountably I feel, has something of a tendresse for Miss Fairchild and is more than willing to marry her to ensure that she and her mother can continue to live in the style to which they are accustomed…’
‘And she is unwilling to do so?’ I broke in, feeling my admiration for her grow.
‘She is more than unwilling!’ Mrs Smith-Welsh exclaimed angrily. ‘She is perversely and stupidly resistant and apparently entirely impervious to any form of reason. Her poor mother is quite beside herself and as for the cousin? Well, I can’t see him waiting for the silly girl for much longer, can you? Not when there is a large fortune and property to recommend him to other young ladies of a more grateful and obedient nature. It’s a wonder that he has remained unmarried for this long!’
‘How unfortunate,’ I murmured as we crossed a hall and went down another passage, this one lined with prints depicting tragic and inspiring scenes from the lives of various Queens of England. Papa would have adored it, which made me smile to myself as I followed Mrs Smith-Welsh to the stairs and listened to her rant on about Miss Fairchild.
‘It’s worse than unfortunate,’ she said with shrill annoyance, sounding more like my aunt Minerva with every passing second. ‘It’s absolutely criminal. There really should be a law that compels young women to do as they are told. I am informed that arranged marriages are still quite common on the continent - perhaps if we followed suit things would be much better for everyone.’
‘Oh, I’m not sure I agree with that,’ I mumbled as I followed her down the stairs to the hall. ‘Surely arranged marriages lead to a lot of unhappiness on both sides.’
Mrs Smith-Welsh paused and turned back to me. ‘Not in the slightest,’ she said. ‘Love is such a very inconvenient emotion, don’t you find? And, more to the point, such a precarious basis for something as grave as marriage. How much better would it be to form a life long commitment based on logic rather than the sort of romantic flummery to be found in the pages of the very worst type of novels?’ She looked me over, her eyes lingering for a moment on the bare ring finger on my left hand. ‘I am sure that your family have someone in mind for you, Miss Redmayne. That handsome young peer waiting downstairs, perhaps? Would you really put your own feeble and half formed wants and desires over your father’s wish to securely settle you in a position that is worthy of your rank and lineage?’
I stared at her. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ I knew exactly what she meant of course. My duplicity was written, plain for all to see, all over my face. ‘Naturally I would always do as my family wishes but I know that what they really want is for me to be happy.’
‘Do they?’ She shrugged and turned away. ‘If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard a young woman say that within these walls and always quite wrongly.’
I followed her silently back to the sitting room where we found Patrick lounging on the sofa, his cheeks slightly red as if he had been asleep. I cast him suspicious look and motioned that we were leaving. ‘I have done all that I can here,’ I said. ‘I think that we should return to London now.’
He smiled and stood up. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Smith-Welsh but I seem to have finished off all of your excellent seed cake,’ he said with a rueful look as he said goodbye to our hostess. ‘You really must send my compliments to your cook.’
As we crossed the hall, the peace of the house was shattered by a series of terrible screams from the upper regions of the house, which were quickly echoed by shouts and cries from other parts of the building. ‘Have your young ladies become excited?’ Patrick asked, entirely straight faced and with apparent concern.
‘It would appear so,’ Mrs Smith-Welsh said grimly as a door to the side opened to allow three women in nursing uniforms and a tall white haired man in a brown checked suit who was brandishing a large black doctor’s bag to
hasten past us across the hall and then up the stairs. ‘They should be able to deal with whatever is happening up above.’
I shivered as the nurses sprinted up the stairs, their heavy black boots clip clopping on the wooden steps. ‘Does this sort of thing happen all the time?’ I said faintly.
Mrs Smith-Welsh gave me what can only be a pitying look and nodded her head. ‘Every single day,’ she said. ‘Which is why we can’t keep maids for longer than a few months at a time. They get exhausted with it after a while and who can blame them? Why would honest country girls who have to work for their daily bread sympathise with the sort of pampered, spoiled, ungrateful little madams who end up in a place like this?’
‘It’s not a lack of gratitude though,’ I said to Patrick when we were back in our carriage again and making our way back down the road to Rayleigh. ‘It’s a sense of outrage that we are supposed to be grateful for all these things that we never asked for in the first place.’
He smiled. ‘Oh, I think I know exactly what you mean. Every time some chippy young fellow like that Mr Mercier of yours calls me ‘my Lord’ with an ironic gleam in his eyes, I just want to beat him about the head while screaming that I didn’t ask for any of this and if he wants my bloody title and all the trouble that goes with it then he’s welcome to it.’
I gave a wan smile. ‘I suppose that is sort of what I meant,’ I said. ‘Although really, Patrick, I don’t think it is something that any man can really properly understand as after all even in your most pampered youth, you were never as protected or kept in so much ignorance as we women.’ I sighed and stared out at the gloomy countryside. It was getting late and a heavy fog was beginning to descend upon the treetops and waft across the road ahead of us. ‘To be frank, I don’t entirely see what we have to be grateful for but Mrs Smith-Welsh would no doubt disagree.’
‘I expect she would,’ Patrick said. ‘What a very unpleasant woman. Anyway,’ he reached across the gap between us and took my hands in his, ‘what did you find out? Anything juicy?’
From Whitechapel Page 27
