The Hollow of Fear

by Sherry Thomas

  The inside of the house was as pretty and cozy as she’d hoped it would be, with an air of contentment rather than ostentation. Even the residents didn’t seem particularly lunatic. To be sure, there was a woman spinning slowly in the corner of a parlor; another sitting on a large Oriental rug, gazing at her bare toes; and a third stacking books on the opposite end of the rug with the intent and seriousness of the builder of the Colosseum, only to knock the stack down and start all over again.

  Livia eyed the fourth woman in the room, expecting her, too, to do something bizarre. The woman, in a large starched cap and a long black dress, stood close to the rotating woman, her back to the visitors. Only after a while did Livia realize that she must be a minder employed by the institution, there to make sure the spinner didn’t fall and hurt herself.

  Livia’s parents had already moved on, pulling along an unhappy Bernadine. Livia hurried after them. In the next room, a combination of a library and a small picture gallery, two women sat at adjacent desks, both writing. The scene appeared normal and serene, until Livia realized that one woman was simply drawing lines again and again across the page and the other’s paper was full of crude, grinning skulls.

  Would Bernadine really be all right, surrounded by all these other women with their conditions?

  But Bernadine, apparently, had found her true home. Against the far wall of the room stood a large rack of rods. The rods threaded through dozens and dozens of objects, not only spools but gears and what looked like the sails of miniature windmills.

  Bernadine, usually slow and shuffling in motion, crossed the room with the speed of a comet. She slid onto the bench that had been provided and immediately began to spin the objects nearest her. She wasn’t alone. Next to her sat a woman in a turban, who spun gears—and only gears—with just as much focus and interest.

  “That is a perennial delight for some of our patients,” said Dr. Wrexhall, nodding with approval.

  He was also a surprise. Livia had expected an unctuous quack. But Dr. Wrexhall was a man of dignified bearing and measured words.

  “Which one of the patients is the benefactress’s daughter?” asked Lady Holmes, always curious about the wealthy and the very wealthy.

  Dr. Wrexhall had explained to Livia, who had not made the previous trip with her parents, that Moreton Close was financed by the widow of an extremely successful industrialist. They had only one child, a daughter. She had wanted the girl to make her debut in Society and marry into one of the finest families of the land. Alas, the girl’s condition had precluded that from ever happening.

  But at Moreton Close, the daughter was and would always remain in the company of other young women from the finest families of the land.

  Livia had thought it a stretch to elevate the Holmeses to such stature, but her parents apparently considered it their due. Sir Henry strutted; Lady Holmes, for the first time since Charlotte had run away from home, wore a smug expression. Here at last they were being accorded the deference due their station. And even better, no one seemed to know anything about the disgrace attached to their youngest child.

  They preened in Dr. Wrexhall’s respectful attention until Livia reminded them that they must hasten to the railway station. At their departure, Bernadine paid them as little mind as her parents paid her. Livia was the only one to hesitate a minute. She almost put a hand on Bernadine’s shoulders. But whereas Charlotte had learned to tolerate a sister’s touch, Bernadine would have immediately pushed Livia’s hand away.

  In the end, she said, to the back of Bernadine’s head, “I’ll come back and see you when I can.”

  As if she hadn’t heard anything, Bernadine set another two gears to spin.

  Dr. Wrexhall walked them out. “I trust you will understand, Sir Henry, Lady Holmes, that we do not publicize our work here. The villagers are still under the impression that this is a family residence. Everything we do, of course, is based on the latest scientific methods and the most humane of principles; but I’m afraid there are and will always be those who would not understand and who would not wish to coexist peacefully with us in their midst.”

  Livia could think of two such people listening to him right now—her parents would have been outraged had there been such an establishment near their residence.

  “But of course,” said Lady Holmes. “We understand perfectly.”

  “Excellent, ma’am. You may expect weekly reports.”

  “We eagerly anticipate them,” said Sir Henry.

  Liar.

  He wouldn’t bother with them at all, and neither would Lady Holmes. At last they had achieved their hearts’ desire: They had got rid of Bernadine in a manner that was more or less acceptable and they need never think of her again.

  But Livia would keep a close eye on the reports. She would visit whenever she could. And she would not allow Bernadine to be forgotten.

  Otherwise, how would she ever face Charlotte again?

  * * *

  Usually Livia looked forward to her annual visit to Mrs. Newell’s. Mrs. Newell was Sir Henry’s cousin, and whatever entrée to Society the Holmes girls had possessed was due more to her popularity than to any stature their parents could claim, based on either lineage or connections.

  In recent years, Mrs. Newell had tired of town. But she still liked to keep in the know. Besides a voluminous correspondence with everyone who was anyone, she also hosted house parties after the end of the Season.

  Sir Henry and Lady Holmes were almost never invited—Mrs. Newell did not care for their company. But she had a soft spot for Livia and Charlotte. This year, for the first time, Livia would attend alone.

  She had dreaded the possibility that her parents would not allow her to go, which Mrs. Newell had prevented by sending a railway ticket, already paid for—and her own maid to accompany Livia on the journey.

  But her absence from home meant that she would not be on hand when the first two reports arrived from Moreton Close. And there was no guarantee her parents would save them for Livia’s return, even though she’d specifically requested that. Lady Holmes was liable to throw them into the grate out of pique that she herself hadn’t received an invitation to Mrs. Newell’s. As for Sir Henry, Livia wouldn’t put it past him to destroy those reports as they came through the door—he who had long been revolted that he’d produced a child like Bernadine.

  She would not be surprised if he was now erasing all traces of Bernadine from their lives.

  As she boarded the train, however, foremost on her mind wasn’t Bernadine, but gratitude that Mrs. Newell’s maid had produced a ticket of her own and would not be sitting with Livia.

  That—and a stomach-churning anxiety about the small package in her handbag.

  Sir Henry didn’t bother with the mail—which too often contained such unpleasantness as notices from creditors—until midday. Lady Holmes was a late riser due to frequent intimacy with her supply of laudanum. Livia, then, was usually the first person to sort through the morning post.

  This morning, she had risen unusually late, having stayed up packing the night before. As soon as she’d seen the two items addressed to her, she’d heard Lady Holmes stomping down the stairs. There had been barely enough time to hide them under her skirts. And she’d remained at the table an eon so that she could leave without anyone seeing them.

  After that there had been only enough time to dress and leave. But now, finally, some blessed privacy.

  But no sooner had she given thanks for that solitude than a local squire’s wife and her daughter entered the compartment. Livia was obliged to engage in pleasantries. The squire’s wife was horrified that Livia, after what had happened to Charlotte, was traveling alone—her protestations about the maid that had been sent to accompany her fell on deaf ears. These mere acquaintances declared their intention to forego their own plans and chaperone Livia all the way to Mrs. Newell’s, with the further insi
nuation that Livia might not be, in fact, headed to a respectable relation’s house.

  She almost wept with relief three stops on, when the maid came to check on her. That happened to be her would-be rescuers’ stop, and they detrained rather reluctantly. At last alone in her compartment, it was several minutes before she was calm enough to take out the letter and the package.

  The handwriting on the letter she didn’t recognize, which most likely meant that it was from Charlotte, who could write in different hands. And they had devised a system whereby Charlotte sent her pamphlets, with a letter sometimes concealed inside glued-together pages.

  But as exciting as it always was to receive word from Charlotte, the one Livia had been dying to open was the small package.

  She had become better at not thinking about the young man who had arrived in her life like a surprise present—excitement, allure, and more than a hint of mystery. They had met three times. Two had been delightful, joyous occasions; and then came the fateful third encounter, during which he’d revealed himself to be Mr. Myron Finch, her illegitimate half brother.

  And she had been shattered by the revelation—and nauseated to have felt a great deal of incestuous sentiments for this bright, personable young man.

  Only to collapse in relief when Charlotte had sent a message that he was not their brother.

  All that had happened near the end of the Season. She had met Charlotte only one time afterward, the night before the Holmes household left London. And she had, very deliberately, mentioned neither their illegitimate half brother nor the man she had fallen in love with who wasn’t, thank God, Mr. Myron Finch.

  Her intentional lack of inquisitiveness meant that she’d failed to learn what Charlotte knew about him. But Livia had harbored other hopes: Shortly before that meeting with Charlotte, he had sent her a beautiful, hand-illustrated bookmark of a woman in white reading on a park bench, which had been exactly how they’d met.

  It hadn’t seemed overmuch to expect that he would write to her at some point. But the bookmark had signaled the beginning and the end of their correspondence.

  He had disappeared, and she had no idea whether she ought to wait or forget him altogether.

  Or rather, she knew she ought to forget him, but she had not succeeded—she couldn’t even be sure she had tried.

  Maybe she never needed to: This package bore his handwriting.

  Her heart palpitated. She opened the package and, with shaking fingers, teased apart the top of the velvet pouch it contained.

  Inside the pouch was a cabochon. Of moonstone. One of the two books they had discussed, upon their first meeting, was titled Moonstone. The other, of course, was The Woman in White, as represented by the bookmark.

  It was him. But what did this mean? Was it a significant signal, or the beginning of another long stretch of silence? Of nothing but her lonely and useless yearning?

  Perhaps she ought to speak to Charlotte. Why had he tried to pass himself off as their illegitimate brother? Who was he? And what exactly were his intentions toward her? A bookmark was an acceptable gift from a male friend. A cabochon, on the other hand . . . Had it been mounted as a ring or set as the centerpiece of a pendant, it would have been outright improper: A man who wasn’t married or related to her could not present her with jewelry.

  As it was, smooth and polished but not ready to wear, the cabochon fell into a gray area, so gray one might as well call it charcoal.

  She held the cabochon for a long time, then she returned it to its pouch and placed the pouch carefully in an inside pocket of her handbag.

  Summer was long gone, but winter had not yet arrived. This was a time of the year when weeks of dreary rain alternated with rare crisp, clear days. Outside the train the sky was blue and the sun shone.

  Livia had met her nameless young man under precisely such a blue sky, such a shining sun.

  She shook her head and reached for the letter.

  Dear Miss Holmes,

  I have news of your sister, Miss Charlotte Holmes.

  Livia recoiled. Who was this? She looked for the signature. Caroline Avery.

  Lady Avery!

  Lady Avery and her sister, Lady Somersby, were Society’s leading gossips. They had been after Livia for news of Charlotte’s whereabouts ever since Charlotte ran away from home. Livia, of course, had never divulged to a single soul that Charlotte was now living in a fine house facing Regent’s Park and conducting business as Sherlock Holmes at 18 Upper Baker Street.

  What did Lady Avery know? And how had she obtained that knowledge? Her heart constricting with a sense of foreboding, Livia read on.

  It came about in a most indirect and surprising manner. I was recently at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. The day before my departure, my own maid being unwell, I engaged a maid from the hotel to help me pack.

  As I supervised her in the wrapping of some frangible items, she claimed, upon coming across a picture in the months-old newspaper, that she had seen the gentleman. As it turned out, the subject of the photograph was Lord Ingram Ashburton, taken on the occasion of his last polo match of the Season. The maid was certain that she had not made a mistake, her reason being that one did not so easily forget a man such as Lord Ingram.

  She told me that during the Season she had worked at a tea shop in Hounslow, not too far from the heath. And one Saturday, still in the height of the Season, he had come in with a lady to whom he appeared devoted. This piqued my attention, since the woman could not possibly have been Lady Ingram.

  I asked her to give me a description of Lord Ingram’s companion. These were her exact words: She could be on an advert for Pears soap, if she lost half a stone. Or maybe one stone.

  My mind immediately turned to Miss Charlotte Holmes. Of course, given my reputation for accuracy and reliability, I couldn’t base my claims only on the girl’s account, as tantalizing as it was. Instead, I went home, fetched an album of photographs, and returned to the hotel in Cowes.

  I showed the girl a picture that had been taken two years ago at Lord Wrenworth’s house party. There were some forty guests in all, and she had no problem identifying Miss Charlotte as Lord Ingram’s companion.

  I made sure to ascertain that this sighting happened after Miss Charlotte’s scandal. The girl assured me that earlier in the summer she had not been working at that particular establishment and so could only have seen them in July, well after Miss Charlotte had left home.

  If this is unknown to you, I am pleased to be the bearer of good news: that your sister is alive and well. Or at least she was at the time she was last seen with Lord Ingram—and I cannot imagine that he would allow her to come to harm. If this is known to you, I should be obliged if you would either corroborate or correct what I have learned thus far.

  Yours truly,

  Caroline Avery

  Two

  Ninety minutes after breakfast, Miss Charlotte Holmes was on her second slice of Madeira cake.

  The cottage Mrs. John Watson had hired for their country sojourn gave onto a lovely panorama of green hills and gentle valleys. But its interior was faded, with small and oddly placed windows. As a result, the parlor, even on a sunny day, was underlit, almost gloomy. And Miss Holmes, in her creamy dress the sleeves of which were abundantly embroidered with green vines and magenta flowers, was the brightest object in the room.

  She hadn’t spoken since she sat down half an hour ago. Not speaking was her natural state and Mrs. Watson had learned to savor Miss Holmes’s silences. To think of them as something similar to the quietude of a slope covered in wildflowers, or the restfulness of rolling pastures dotted with new calves.

  Since the night Miss Holmes helped her brother escape, however, the sense of tranquility had disappeared from her silences. Lately, sitting near her, Mrs. Watson thought of London fogs, thick and all-obscuring, of maritime brumes, the kind that made ships sail straight int
o rocky cliffs, and even, occasionally, of quagmire and quicksand, seemingly innocuous surfaces waiting to entrap hapless travelers.

  Even her delight in the consumption of sweet, buttery goods felt . . . less joyful. She ate more—Mrs. Watson scarcely came upon her without seeing a biscuit or an entire Victoria sponge parked by her side. But the woman across from Mrs. Watson demolished her slice of Madeira cake with not so much pleasure as a mechanical neediness, the way a tense man would light one cigarette after another.

  In the days and weeks immediately following Mr. Finch’s narrow escape, Mrs. Watson, too, had been frantic with worry. She and Miss Holmes had conferred frequently and at length concerning the various scenarios that could arise, and what their countermeasures must be in any given situation.

  But months went by and nothing happened. Mrs. Watson, as fretful as she could be, began to relax. Sooner or later everyone made a mistake. Even the otherwise unflappable Miss Holmes must overreact from time to time.

  “My dear,” she said, “we’ve been here three days and you’ve scarcely gone out. What say you we make a tour of Stern Hollow today?”

  Stern Hollow was Lord Ingram’s estate. They hadn’t hired a house in the area for his sake. They’d come because Mrs. Newell, Miss Holmes’s first cousin, once removed, lived nearby—and Miss Holmes’s sister was expected at Mrs. Newell’s for the latter’s house party.

  But Mrs. Watson was confident that Miss Holmes did not mind at all that Lord Ingram also happened to be close at hand.