Mad Miss Mimic

by Sarah Henstra

  “Would you tell me?” There was no judgment or derision in Tom’s face, only curiosity. So I told him, haltingly, of the summer my father had performed mass funeral services nearly every week. The cholera had taken so many, so quickly, that there wasn’t time for elaborate rites. Christa and I had been shut up at the house for months for fear of infection, so I remembered mostly relief at being allowed to attend the service once the threat of infection had waned. Mrs. Cavendish, I learned later, had been one of the village’s most stalwart nurses, caring for dozens of her ill and dying neighbours after her own family had all passed away. But at this funeral she’d flung herself from her pew into the aisle, crawled on all fours to the centre of the church, thrown back her greying head, and launched into a wailing scream that no amount of entreating and consoling by her friends could silence.

  My father had waited calmly some moments through the interruption. Then he’d descended from the pulpit and approached the heartbroken woman, taken her in his arms, and, on his knees in the middle of the church, prayed over her. Even so the sound did not stop, and I remembered finally being taken from the chapel by my nurse and walking home amid a hushed and shuffling crowd benumbed by grief.

  When I finished my story Tom smiled and shook his head.

  “W-what is it?” I ventured.

  “Mimic was your great friend and ally today.” His voice warmed, dropped lower: “Miss Luck, I shall call you, with her at your command.”

  “I don’t c-command her. There is n-no ‘her.’ Just m-me, and a tongue I cannot c-control.” I swallowed and struggled to look away but failed. His smile crinkled the fine skin at the corners of his eyes and sparked the grey irises with warmth. Again I thought of the music box and its merry tune, and I wondered which was the real Tom Rampling: the sneak-thief or the savior? The solemn, stone-faced one or this one radiating happiness?

  NINE

  Iexpected uproar at Hastings House over my disappearance and my dishevelled state. But Tom brought me round the back door and handed me to Bess directly, telling her only in broad terms what had happened. The maid was red-eyed, and she wiped away tears of relief as she cleaned me up and whisked away my torn dress before sending notice to my sister. I supposed it wouldn’t reflect well on Bess, either, that I had wandered away from her company and fallen into danger.

  When Christa did come to see me that evening she was only mildly concerned about my late return. After listening impatiently to my stammering excuses about my scraped shoulder—I said nothing about being attacked or rescued by Tom—she merely said to Bess, “Tell Mrs. Nussey we’ll have the dressmaker tomorrow to fix some lace to cover that.”

  When Bess was dismissed I learned the reason for Christa’s distraction. “Leo, listen to this. Mr. Thornfax has asked us to the opera on Saturday!”

  “Us?”

  “Well, Daniel has a prior engagement. But you and I will go with him—and, don’t you know, he has a box, Leo!” I’d heard about Francis Thornfax’s private box at the Royal Opera House several times already from my sister. I knew she’d been desperate for the invitation. “We shall be seen.” She sighed, draping herself across my bed.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Christabel had once begged our aunt Emmaline for a private box at the opera—she’d even attempted to argue that such a thing would make the perfect wedding gift—but Aunt Emma had scoffed at the notion of “throwing good coins after vanity.” The Lady Hastings loved opera and had taken us to Faust and The Magic Flute when we were younger, but she’d never understood my sister’s yearning for society’s attention and approval.

  Emily came in carrying a tray with a small bottle and a glass of water.

  “Oh, at last!” Christa sprang up from the bed to meet her at the door. She squirted a quick series of laudanum droplets into the water and drank back the draught in one gulp. “And next time,” she scolded the maid, “do ensure it doesn’t take you so long to find me.”

  She returned to my bed, flopped onto her belly, and propped her chin on her hands. “Do you know what Mr. Thornfax told Daniel the other day? He said that he found you ‘utterly bewitching’!”

  “D-does that mean he liked me after all?”

  “It means that, somehow, your ridiculous theatrics at the party last week intrigued him. Or else he thought you pretty enough that he doesn’t care how deranged you are.”

  “I’m not d-deranged,” I protested, but it was such an old quarrel between us that my protest lacked conviction.

  “Either way I consider it very good news indeed.” She frowned at my muslin nightdress. “Where are your silks? The French lace? Leo, you must take responsibility for your own future!”

  “Is Mr. Thornfax c-coming to my b-bedroom?”

  “Don’t be clever,” she snapped. She gathered herself off my bed and flounced to the door. “And don’t you go rambling about the city like that again, exhausting and injuring yourself. I intend to keep you quiet and safe until Thornfax takes you off my hands for good.”

  Saturday morning a note arrived for my sister from Mr. Thornfax. She squealed when she read it, and then made a game of not telling me what it contained or how she’d responded to it. I gave up guessing too quickly for her liking, though, so she followed me all round the house, jittery with suppressed excitement.

  Finally I said, “Well? W-what is it? Will he pr-propose?”

  “Silly Leo!” Christa tittered. “He asked the colour of your dress, that’s all.”

  That evening, when Mr. Thornfax arrived and was ushered into the parlour, I was presented to him in a lavender gown whose bodice had been artfully altered to reveal less of my marred shoulder and more of my bosom. After the briefest of hellos Christa dragged all the servants out of the room with her. I’d envisioned a corsage or perhaps a lace shawl, so I was surprised when Mr. Thornfax handed me a flat silver box. A necklace! A heavy, ornate choker of amethysts and diamonds set in gold, fully two inches wide, with a carved jade medallion suspended from the centre. It was icy cold, and I gasped as he fastened it round my neck.

  He whistled low and turned me to the mirror on the mantel. The jewels flashed in the gaslight and sent violet starbursts across my throat and chest.

  I took a breath and turned to face Mr. Thornfax. “It’s”—I skated around beautiful—“lovely. I thank you, s-sir.”

  He placed an elbow on the mantel. “Miss Somerville, I am truly sorry your servant girl died,” he said. “But I must confess that I was grateful for the opportunity it gave me to see what you might do and say in unexpected circumstances.”

  Shame pricked over my skin. I’d hoped that Mimic’s outburst at the surgery would not need talking about, but I’d forgotten Mr. Thornfax’s direct manner.

  “I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought. I realize now how much pressure you must have felt, all during that party, to converse with everyone. I realize how even I must have pressed you to speak, when you would rather have not.”

  I gaped at him. It was the first time in my memory that a man had attempted to see the thing from my point of view. My past suitors, in avoiding the subject altogether, had only grown more and more nervous about my dysfluency. Mr. Greenlove would talk incessantly in an attempt to fill in both our parts of the conversation. Poor Mr. Kelso would actually wince whenever I stuttered, which of course made the stuttering worse. After a while, with those men, the tension had built so high that the air between us fairly crackled with anticipation of Mimic’s next appearance.

  Mr. Thornfax, though, was entirely at his ease. Absorbed in the subject, he crossed one ankle over the other and rubbed his thumb absently along his jaw. “We will often need to appear in public together. That cannot be avoided,” he said. “But I should like you somehow to feel safe, to be easy on my arm.”

  I could feel myself becoming easier with him even as he spoke. It was as if his charm and confidence were being transferred from his body to mine, encircling me like a cloak. I smiled at him.

  “There, you see? Those
eyes, that smile—that is all you need to share, Miss Somerville, and everyone you meet will be enchanted with you. You needn’t speak at all. Not one word, unless you wish it.” Mr. Thornfax turned me to the mirror again and adjusted the jade medallion in the hollow between my collarbones. His palms lingered on my shoulders as he set his chin playfully atop my head. He made a silly face at our reflection, and I laughed, but I’d also glimpsed a heated appreciation in his eyes that brought colour to my cheeks.

  Christabel paled and gave a little shriek when she saw what I was wearing. “Oh! Sir, you are too good!”

  “Thornfax, really,” Daniel admonished with a smile. “You’ll make my wife forever discontented with the baubles I can buy her.”

  The Dewhurst children, brought downstairs by Greta to be kissed, were instantly fond of Mr. Thornfax’s gift, too: Bertie’s eyes shone when I knelt to embrace him, and baby Alexander lunged for the necklace with both fists and screamed when Greta pried him away.

  A heavy fog had descended over the city, and we did not see until we were halfway down the steps that Mr. Thornfax had brought his state carriage to convey us. This produced in my sister further squeals and flutterings. Mr. Thornfax excused himself a moment to speak with his driver, a round-shouldered man called Curtis.

  We waited beside the carriage while Emily fetched the ivory fan my sister had forgotten upstairs. Daniel joined the men beside the horses’ tossing heads, their voices competing with the jangling bridle bells. Apparently Daniel’s prior engagement had been cancelled, for I heard him ask Mr. Thornfax whether he was certain he oughtn’t to come along with us to the opera after all.

  “’Tis a show of confidence in your business partner to entrust your wife to him,” Mr. Thornfax responded.

  Daniel said something I couldn’t hear, and Mr. Thornfax shook his head. “No, I assure you. Not with Curtis at the ready.” And he threw a playful punch at his driver, who ducked and stepped back, seeming rather embarrassed.

  Curtis could have been Daniel’s twin, I observed. They were identical in height and girth and had matching bald pates and ruddy, fleshy jowls. But if these were twins, they had been separated at birth and sent down very different paths. Curtis’s hunched shoulders only accentuated the bulky, built-up muscles of his arms and back. The skin of his face was heavily pocked—ravaged by some childhood disease—and his nose was flattened to one side. I remembered overhearing Mr. Thornfax, on one of his early business visits to Hastings, telling Daniel that Curtis had once fought in the rings at Vauxhall. They’d joked that a boxer made the best carriage driver, because he’d leap down from the seat and wallop anyone blocking traffic.

  Just as Christa’s maid returned, Tom Rampling came round the side of the house. He pulled up short when he saw me and continued more slowly toward us, smoothing his vest and unrolling his sleeves to fasten the cuffs. I was grateful that Christa was occupied with Emily, because Tom stared openly at me, taking in my gown, my hair, my face. Worried he might say something about our previous encounter, I moved down along the carriage to head him off and made a pretense of checking my heel.

  “Miss Luck.” The soft voice sent an unexpected shiver through me, and I took a steadying breath before looking up at him. His grey gaze settled on Mr. Thornfax’s gift at my throat. Tom scrubbed a hand across his mouth and looked away.

  I drew my wrap self-consciously round my shoulders. How garish and ostentatious the necklace is, I suddenly thought. How he must despise me for wearing it. Then I wondered why, exactly, it should be despicable to wear a gift from a wealthy suitor. I released the wrap again and lifted my head a little higher, silently daring Tom to comment.

  He shook his head, brows drawn. “You are transformed, milady. Hardly the ragged maid in need of rescue now.”

  “I was n-never ragged—” I began, but stopped when I remembered my torn dress and missing buttons. “All right, m-maybe I was, a little. You n-needn’t worry a-b-bout me, you know.” I had no idea what I meant by this last statement, but I wanted, with a sudden urgency, to reassure him.

  “Mr. Rampling. Don’t the Somerville ladies look lovely tonight?” Mr. Thornfax, rounding the corner of the carriage, gave Tom a clap on the shoulder. I noticed Tom flinch a little. He looked suddenly pale and plain next to the broad-shouldered gentleman with his golden mane and fine clothes.

  Mr. Thornfax dropped his voice. “I understand I must thank you for seeing Miss Somerville safely out of danger.”

  “I—Sir, I did not …” Tom trailed off.

  “You were painted in quite the gallant colours. I owe you a great debt for your part in guarding this lady’s well-being, and her virtue.” He took Tom’s hand and shook it. “Above all, you know, I want Miss Somerville kept safe.”

  I kept my eyes on my shoes. I hadn’t realized Mr. Thornfax knew anything about how I’d been attacked in the alleyway, didn’t understand how he could know. He had shown me great consideration by not mentioning it in front of Daniel and Christabel.

  My sister now walked up to us. Tom turned to include her and made a tight bow. “Mrs. Dewhurst. Miss Somerville.”

  I curtsied and bade Tom a polite good night, feeling the damp night rush in again against my skin as Mr. Thornfax handed me into the carriage. The maids helped settle our bustles and overskirts across the leather seats so the silk would not crease. Unexpectedly the men’s voices rose in heated conversation outside, and I was startled to hear Tom’s among them. “Opera,” I heard him say, and I thought I caught “danger to the ladies.”

  Beside me Christa spoke over them, wondering what could possibly be causing such a delay, and what if we should be late. I felt like slapping her to make her quiet. I caught a sharp comment from Mr. Thornfax—“mind yourself,” it might have been—and then Daniel’s voice, low and soothing. A moment later Mr. Thornfax swung himself into the carriage beside Christabel and called to Curtis, and we were off.

  “Was there an argument, sir?” my sister wondered.

  Mr. Thornfax sat back and propped an elbow on the windowsill. “Your husband’s boy is cleverer than is strictly necessary, I think. He would do all our jobs for us if we let him.”

  “Tom Rampling? How disagreeable of him! I’ve always said to Dr. Dewhurst ’tis unwise to bring that boy up so high. Daniel would teach Tom all his secrets if it meant he could sit in his easy chair and drink port wine.” Christa reached across Mr. Thornfax to tweak the ruby cuff-clip at his wrist, setting it square. The gesture was more matronly than flirtatious; I could see she was delighted to be discussing her household with a man she hoped would join it, one day soon.

  “Has he been very long in the doctor’s employ?” Mr. Thornfax asked.

  “Years and years—we’d only just gotten married. Dr. Dewhurst had him directly from Seven Dials, you know, all starved and slumduggered.” Christa adopted a confiding whisper. “The police were after him for house-breaking and all sorts of things, but my husband declared such promise in the boy that he insisted on clearing all, setting all to rights, and bringing him home.”

  In all my time at Hastings I had never heard this history from either Christabel or Daniel. Fearful of betraying my agitation I held my hands tight in my lap and gazed out the carriage window into the fog.

  Mr. Thornfax said, “Is Dewhurst always so soft, then?”

  Christa clucked her tongue in fond exasperation. “Tom was but the start of his madness for charity. ’Tis Tom brings all these souls to my husband’s door, and not a one leaves again without some easement of pain and suffering.”

  Mr. Thornfax frowned. “I had assumed the doctor more … strategic, in choosing orphans and paupers to test his medical treatments. Perhaps I shall speak with him.”

  Christabel talked without stop all the way to Covent Garden, with Mr. Thornfax supplying polite answers to her questions whenever she paused long enough to listen. My head spun with the effort to make sense of what I’d heard, both the disagreement outside the carriage and my sister’s revelation. “It is not what y
ou think,” Tom had told me, of Will’s crime and the dismantled watch parts in his grandmother’s room. Yet Tom was a criminal—or at least he had been one when Daniel found him, according to my sister.

  Mr. Thornfax offered us each an arm as we ascended the stairs of the white-columned opera house. The chattering crowd in the foyer parted for us like pigeons before galloping riders. Mr. Thornfax made dozens of introductions, his strong hand resting between my shoulder blades or at my waist each time he presented me. He remembered not only the names of all the ladies and gentlemen who approached us, but also a flattering fact or detail about each person to share with me in his or her presence, so that one by one he set them beaming with pleasure before he released their hands.

  “Wherever did you find her, Thornfax?” a whiskered gentleman demanded.

  “Is she not ravishing?” Mr. Thornfax purred.

  “Roses and cream,” the man agreed, pressing his lips to my glove and leaving a damp spot.

  “Will there be an announcement?” asked an enormous lady, perspiring under her fox-fur stole.

  “One only dares to hope,” said Mr. Thornfax, provoking smiles all round and a long, delighted laugh from Christabel.

  I decided it was a relief not to have to think of conversation, to be introduced and admired and praised without needing to be clever or coherent. Freed of any duty to speak I used my eyes, instead. The gilt-framed mirrors showed Mr. Thornfax and me from all angles, and I couldn’t help but notice what a handsome couple we made. He stood a head taller than most of the crowd, and he’d paired his tailcoat with a smart midnight-blue waister in place of the more traditional white. My dress with its plunging décolletage was shapely through the bust and hips, gathered into a sumptuous froth of ruffles and folds at the back.