“We must get word to Lizzie and warn her,” said Mary, “but with Sir Caleb and that evil man about, we have little hope of approaching her directly.”
“So you propose to creep out and get a carriage in the middle of the night, to sneak into a young lady’s home because you fear she’s in danger?” asked Peebs.
“Well…yes,” said Mary.
“Well, I can hardly allow that,” said Peebs. “If she is in danger, then surely you would be in the same danger should you find yourself on the estate again. And you, Lady Ada, not an hour arisen from your sickbed. Therefore I must forbid it.”
“Forbid it? You are not my father!” said Mary angrily.
“No, but I am his friend, and your tutor, and the only adult in this fiasco. I cannot permit you to endanger yourself. I shall convey a message myself, and leave at once if you like.”
“That’s no good at all,” said Mary. “Sir Caleb won’t let you see her, and I doubt he’ll pass on a message.”
“Nevertheless, I will try,” said Peebs finally. “And you will stay here.”
Mary felt like a boiling pot with the lid on. She rattled around her own edges until she met Ada’s eyes. Ada gave her a secret half smile, and a secret half nod, and Mary half nodded back as the pot cooled somewhat.
Mrs. Woolcott had taken a brief respite from Ada’s bedside to attend to her home and husband, and so Mary had taken the opportunity to see that Ada was as presentable as possible, her hair brushed, wearing her best cape and bonnet, and then Mary, Allegra, and Ada sneaked out the upstairs kitchen door.
Peebs had gone off with a letter for Lizzie. Charles had returned to his family, and even Jane had been persuaded to go home. But Allegra had stuck to Ada’s side like a bur, sensing correctly that detecting was about to be done.
It was a short enough walk to Regent’s Park from the Marylebone house, even for a weakened Ada, close enough to home for three young girls to stroll unescorted, and along the park path, to the College of Physicians.
Somewhere behind the green-painted door and tall white stone wall was the ghost girl, Alice.
There was no bell rope or knocker. The girls looked about, and there was no one to open the door for them. Shrugging, they pulled the heavy metal handle, and the door groaned open.
The place was silent as a library and sounded hollow. It had the air of learned gentlemen: wet tweed and musty tobacco, old books and the sickly sweet aroma of beard oils and pomades.
They took tentative steps down the echoey hall. A door opened with a start, and a young clerk trotted past them as though they themselves were ghosts. He disappeared around a corner.
There was no one at the reception desk, so the girls crept arm in arm in arm through that strange place, following the fleeing figure for no other reason than that the hallway simply led them in that direction.
Again a door opened unexpectedly, and the man popped out, blinked twice at the girls, and offered a dubious “Can I help you?”
Mary wore a well-rehearsed smile. “Yes, thank you kindly, sir. We are here to visit Mrs. Gulpidge.”
“Mrs. Gulpidge?”
“Yes, we are…cousins of hers, and we have brought her some comforts of home.” Mary gave Ada a prod with an elbow, who in turn prodded Allegra, and at this Allegra produced first a dramatic nod and then a small basket covered with a handkerchief.
“Mrs. Gulpidge,” the clerk repeated, only this time with a bit less of a question in his tone.
“Mrs. Caleb Gulpidge. We are of the understanding she is a patient here.”
“I’m not certain I recall a Mrs.—” he began.
“She’s in the hospital,” said Allegra cheerfully.
“Oh dear,” said the clerk. “I’ll have to check with the doctor to see if she is receiving visitors.”
“Oh, it’s perfectly all right, I’m sure,” said Mary. “In fact, we have a note right here from her doctor, saying that a visit from her loving cousins would be the best thing for her. Don’t we, Allegra?”
“Umm,” said Allegra.
“May I see this note?” the man asked.
“But of course. Allegra, please show this gentleman the note.”
“Umm,” said Allegra again.
“Oh, you silly poppet-head. Did you leave it at home? I did say it was terribly important and you were not to lose it. Didn’t I tell you?” insisted Mary.
“Umm,” said Allegra, a third time. Ada coughed.
“I’m afraid,” said the clerk, “that without authorization it would be imposs—”
“Oh, you know little girls,” said Mary forcefully. “Always thinking about dolls and ribbons and never remembering important things like doctors’ notes. The fact remains, sir, that we do possess exactly the authorization we require.”
“You possess it, yet it is not in your possession?” he asked, confused.
“Dolls and ribbons,” said Allegra, although through gritted teeth.
“Ah, well, that’s, um, I see. Well, please follow me, ladies,” the man said, relenting.
There was rather a great deal more hallway than they expected, and more turns and turn-agains than they could keep track of. The air took on a worried, desperate quality, and the hair began to bristle on the backs of their necks. Ada squeezed Mary’s arm in hers.
At the end of one long, white-painted hall was a long, white-painted door. Approaching it, their escort seemed to have second thoughts.
“Are you quite certain you have—”
“Thank you, sir, for your assistance in our compliance with her doctor’s explicit and direct orders to visit and provide solace to our cousin. It really is most kind of you.”
He paused. His bottom lip seemed to go sideways for a moment, as though it were having some sort of argument with his top lip, and the bottom lip was winning.
“I’m sorry—if you young ladies would stay here for a moment, I’ll be right back after I check on something. You may remain here or, if you prefer, return on some other occasion.” Curtly, he turned on his heel and was about to walk away when Allegra seemed to suddenly lose her balance, knocking into the fellow.
“I say!” he said, startled.
“Tripped. Sorry,” said Allegra, giving him her biggest eyes and lashes.
Frowning, the clerk strode back down the hall away from them, clicking as he went.
“Oh bother,” sighed Mary. “And it was going so well. Now what do we do?”
Allegra gave Mary a playful push. “Dolls and ribbons!” she said with a grin, then handed Ada a leather loop with a dozen brass keys.
“Allegra! Did you pick his pockets?”
“You grow up in a convent, you learn a thing or two.” Allegra shrugged.
Ada began at once to try each key in the white door, while the others kept watch. On the third try, there was a loud click as satisfying as it was terrifying. The girls looked at one another for a full second before opening the door.
As bright as it was, lit through slender windows set high up on the wall, there was a darkness to the place. The white paint had been replaced with grey, and with each step the girls seemed to wade through the still air of sickness. Narrow metal doors lined the corridor, each door leading to a narrow room with a narrow bed. Each cold iron door seemed to cast its own chill into the hallway.
Ada, Allegra, and Mary proceeded in slow motion, arm in arm. Mary could tell with each step that Ada was beginning to flag. Through each door could be heard its own heartbreak—a sob, a muttering, a cough—and each small sound seemed to steal something from their hearts and push a leaden cold into their ribs. They could scarcely stand it.
“It’s all right, you know,” whispered Mary. “We’ve done this sort of thing before.”
“Prison,” agreed Ada. “And my feet didn’t work.”
“And here you are, you ferocious thing, having fought off a beastly fever, and your feet working perfectly.”
“They are a bit heavy,” Ada said, frowning.
“That you�
��re out of bed at all is testament to your fortitude.”
“I’m just stubborn, I think,” admitted Ada.
“You are,” agreed Allegra. “Stubborn.”
“Well, we have that in our favor.” Mary smiled and gave Ada another squeeze of encouragement.
The hallway ended not in a door but a doorway. Beyond was a large, near-empty room, with only a scattering of chairs and a single patient, a girl, seated with her back to them. Mary saw her grey gown and the auburn hair.
“Alice?” asked Ada, stepping forward. The girl turned, her hair catching the thin light. There was a curious distance in her expression, the spark gone out of her eyes, but to Ada she was unmistakable.
“Lizzie!” Ada cried, and ran to her, Mary immediately behind. “Lizzie, how did you get here? Are you all right?”
Lizzie—for indeed it was Lizzie, and not Alice as they had expected—slowly reached out and touched first Ada’s face, then Mary’s. She moved as though she were in a dream.
“Ada?” Lizzie asked softly.
“What’s wrong with her?” asked Allegra.
“Medicine,” Mary answered. “They give you medicine in such places, to keep you calm. Oh, Lizzie, we have to get you out of here.”
“You’ll do no such thing” came a booming voice from the doorway. Instinctively they looked around for another door, or a window—any avenue for escape—but all they saw was a rack of long, pale canes, their purpose all too menacing.
The voice belonged to a round gentleman with protruding grey muttonchops, his suit fine and his waistcoat scarlet. He ended each sentence with a bang of his walking stick on the floor.
“Who are you girls?” Bang. “On what pretense do you interfere with my patient?” Bang. “How did you get in here?” Bang.
“There’s been a mistake, doctor.” Mary assumed the man was a doctor, given the finery of his clothes and the way he acted as if he owned the place. “This is not Alice Gulpidge but her twin sister, Lizzie.”
“I knew you girls were trouble,” said the man behind the doctor. “Dolls and ribbons indeed.”
Allegra popped out from behind Mary and rudely stuck her tongue out at him.
“I should call the constabulary!” said the doctor, blocking the door with his stick. “In fact, I mean to. You there, alert the constable.”
Quick as anything, Allegra moved to the wall and removed a long, whippy cane. She pointed it at the doctor.
“Move your walking stick, doctor. Mary, Ada, take Lizzie and go.”
“Impudent child!” shouted the doctor, and aimed his stick right at Allegra. “Put down that cane at once!”
“You first,” said Allegra. With that, the doctor swung his stick to knock her cane out of the way, but she swished it to the side, so that he missed completely, and she returned pointing her cane straight at the doctor’s face.
“Wretch!” the doctor exclaimed, again trying to beat the cane from Allegra’s hand. She darted it out and parried it like a sword, tapping first one side, then the other. She seemed to be enjoying herself.
“Go!” she said to Mary. Mary gathered Lizzie up, half carrying her, and moved toward the door. Ada could do little but follow. The young man tried to bar their way, but Allegra lunged forward to poke him in the belly with her cane.
“Hey! Gerroff!” he said, trying to pluck the cane from the air. Allegra’s cane was too quick. Mary used that moment to push both Lizzie and Ada ahead of her, out the doorway and down the long grey hall—leaving Allegra and the two men to duel in the big room.
The doctor had clearly lost his temper now, and he swung the stick not at Allegra’s cane but at the girl herself, who stepped and parried, all in a circle, so that now their situations were reversed: the men in the room, and Allegra in the doorway. She could see behind her that the other girls had made it to the far end of the hallway and opened the locking metal door that separated the asylum from the rest of the college.
While she was distracted, the young man rushed her, but she whacked his ear, nearly losing her cane in the process but allowing her a few vital steps backward. Finally, at wits’ end, the doctor thrust his walking stick straight at Allegra’s face—but she caught the attack with her cane and in a spiral motion wrapped the force of his thrust around and around, sending his stick spinning out of his hand and behind her down the corridor.
“The disarm!” she said, delighted. “Ada! I did it!”
Glancing backward, Allegra could see Mary at the door, ready to open it further or, she feared, shut it altogether. In one last, desperate move, she poked a wrist and a belly and a nose, then turned to run. The clerk made one last, desperate grab for her, but Allegra twirled out of his reach and then sprinted for the barely open door. Once she was through, Mary clanged it shut and locked it with the key she had at the ready, trapping the angry men behind it.
Allegra looked up at Ada, catching her breath.
“Told you bendy could be useful,” she said, and was rewarded with a small smile from Ada.
“That, Miss Byron, was rather terribly impressive,” granted Mary. “But we have to get Lizzie out of here, and Ada needs help too.”
So Allegra supported Ada, and Mary held up Lizzie, and the four of them took one corner and another, not really caring if they found the door they’d first come through—anything leading out would do—but by some fate managed to find themselves where they had begun. As before, there was no one about, so Mary set the loop of keys on a doorknob and pushed the main door out into the late afternoon of Regent’s Park.
Mr. Franklin scarcely raised an eyebrow to find four young ladies in the foyer, one of whom was barely conscious. He simply scooped Lizzie up and inclined his head toward the stairs so that the girls might precede him and show him which room to place her in.
When she was safely ensconced in a guest bedroom, with Ada “I might rest for just a bit” lying next to her, Mary had a moment to wonder:
“If we’ve got Lizzie, who’s got Alice?”
She wasn’t expecting an answer, as of course Alice could be anywhere—she could still be wandering the alleys of Kensington where Mary’d last seen her this morning. So Mary was stunned when Lizzie quite clearly said, “They do,” before slipping off into sleep.
It was a dark and stormy night.
The full fury of freezing rain had not returned from the other evening, but the wind had winter on its mind and sought every gap in the folds of Mary’s cloak. Lanternless, they were a good ways from Dedlock Hall but had given the coachman strict instructions. He was more than a little reluctant to take them in the first place, guessing their ages, and even less willing to drop three young girls off so far from anywhere on such a ghastly night, but the last of Mary’s pocket money was surrendered, and he did as she asked.
Alongside, Ada was bundled in one of her mother’s cloaks, better for the weather if a bit too long for the eleven-almost-twelve-year-old, and trawling mud. As much as Mary would have preferred Ada return to bed and recover, she knew there was no denying her friend’s nature.
Jane too would not be denied this trip. She’d suspected that Mary was trying to get rid of her earlier, and so she had delivered a message to their parents that both sisters would be spending the night at the Byron house, and returned, overnight bag in hand. She wished she’d thought to bring a warmer cloak, or warmer shoes, or warmer anything as the three girls walked in silence, and in worry, through the black night.
They had spent the entire evening trying to talk themselves out of it.
Peebs had sent word that he hadn’t succeeded in seeing Lizzie, but that was no surprise—Lizzie was with them. Did Lizzie even know what she was saying, though? Did she really mean that Alice was being held at Dedlock Hall? Did she even know that Alice existed?
But in the end there was nothing for it—if there was a chance Alice was in danger, they had to try to help.
Her frozen fingers keeping her cloak closed, Mary trudged and trod through the mud ruts in the road. She h
ad a box of matches, if it came to that, but feared the light would attract attention. The wind made eerie creaking noises in the branches of roadside trees.
They made good time as the wind sped them on, and within ten minutes or so they saw the trees thin out, and saw too the lights of the great manor house across the green. Off to the left was the stone mausoleum, and it was this that they first wanted to visit. Whatever it was that Ada had suspected, she knew the key was in the Roman numerals, and she wanted another look.
Mary felt the most pressing thing was to find Alice as quickly as possible and get them all back safely to Marylebone. Ada paused, gripping the wet bark of a white tree, catching her breath. Mary feared Ada’s fever might return if their mission lasted a moment longer than necessary—perhaps even if they turned back at that moment. Jane held Ada’s hands in an effort to warm them and looked up at her big sister for some kind of direction. Mary wished she had some to give.
As they approached the crypt from behind, Mary’s blood ran cold. There was a sound coming from the tomb, where no living sound should be.
Sobbing.
Every ghost story Mary had read or imagined arose fully before her. She thought she should pray, but her mind was a flurry of cave bats, and no prayer would settle in her memory. She swallowed and pressed on.
She dared peek quickly about the corner to the front of the crypt and back again, her heart trying to break its way out of her ribs and run back up the road without her.
“There’s no one there,” whispered Mary.
“You’ve seen a ghost before,” said Ada. “And it was just a girl. Nothing to be afraid of. Go on.”
That makes sense, thought Mary. If there’s a sound inside, it’s a girl, not a ghost. It must be Alice—it had to be Alice. She would be in need of an ally, glad of their company, and grateful for the assistance they were there to deliver. Mary steeled herself, stood up straight, and walked to the iron grille of the tomb.
“Alice?” she asked of the darkness.
There was no answer, only further sobbing, but an exhausted sobbing, the kind that comes from several hours of it with no relief.
The Case of the Girl in Grey Page 9
