The Truth About Verity Sparks

by Susan Green

  Miss Lillingsworth said nothing, but frowned to show she disapproved.

  “What do you say, Verity?” the Professor asked. “It’s entirely up to you.”

  The three of them stood, waiting for my answer.

  I took a deep breath. “I’ll do it,” I said. With SP and Miss Lillingsworth on my side, I knew I didn’t have to. But I didn’t want to be scared of this new gift, and the way I saw it, the only way not to be scared was to find out more about it.

  “You are a brave girl,” said Miss Lillingsworth. She added, in a low voice, very gently, “There’s no need to be frightened.”

  Frightened! My teeth were chattering. I only hoped I could go through with it.

  Miss Lillingsworth got the Professor to draw the curtains and go and sit with SP on the window seat, and then we began.

  “Place your right hand over the letter, shut your eyes, and just wait,” she said. “Pictures or thoughts may float through your mind, or they may not. Don’t force anything. Just wait.”

  I did as she told me. Nothing. My mind was a blank. I stopped feeling afraid. My stomach rumbled. A fly buzzed somewhere. And then – my fingers were tingling, and there was the sea and sand and children paddling and a donkey. Noises now too – laughter and the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves, and a man’s voice, just a murmur, and then a woman’s replying, soft and low. “So ’appy,” she said. “So ’appy.”

  10

  THE SEVENTH STAR

  I opened my eyes and looked up.

  “Don’t tell me,” said Miss Lillingsworth. She shut her eyes and put her hand on the paper, and we waited. It was only about a minute before she opened her eyes again.

  “That is that,” she said. She shook her hands as if flicking off water, and then stretched them. “Now, Verity. Did you see anything?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. This was nothing like the last time. Nothing scary or horrible. In fact, it was a day at the beach.

  “The sea,” I said. “It was like that postcard Cook’s cousin sent from Margate. And I heard voices. They were sweethearts.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, he was talking sweet and low to her, but I couldn’t make out the words, and she was saying she was happy.” I thought some more. “They was in a carriage.”

  “Well,” Miss Lillington stood up, went over to the window and opened the curtains. “Well, well!”

  “Well, well, what?” asked the Professor. “Did you get a reading, Maria?”

  “I did. It was substantially the same as Verity’s.” Miss Lillingsworth stretched her hands again, cracking the joints. “I would say that the subject is alive and well and very happy indeed. I also think he has just married.”

  SP and the Professor looked at each other. “Good lord.” said the Professor. “What does your conscience tell you to do, SP?”

  “Return their fee and tell the Rhodes we cannot help them,” said SP, promptly.

  “I agree, my boy.” The Professor explained briefly that he had been engaged by Mr and Mrs Rhodes to find their missing son and return him to them. They knew he was alive, for he’d sent them one brief letter, assuring them that all was well, and then they’d heard nothing more. The governess, coincidentally, had left their employment at around the same time.

  “It’s not her,” I piped up.

  “How do you know, Verity?” asked the Professor.

  “She said ‘so ’appy’. She drops her aitches, like I did before Miss Judith taught me not to. No governess would speak like that. So at least you can tell his ma and pa it’s not her.”

  “I don’t want to tell them anything. Poor lad, he deserves his happiness. We’ll let him escape, eh?”

  “But what will they live on?” I asked. All three stared at me. “They can’t be happy if they’ve got no money,” I said. “He’s a gentleman and all.”

  “Oh, Verity,” sighed the Professor. “Now you have presented me with a moral dilemma.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  Miss Lillingsworth put her hand over mine. “That is for you and SP to work out, Saddy. I want to talk to Verity.” She stood up briskly and rang the bell. “Alone.”

  “But Maria, I wanted to ask Verity …” The Professor already had his notebook and pencil out, but Miss Lillington shooed him and SP towards the doorway.

  “Shall we come back in, say, ten minutes?” the Professor asked.

  “I will call for you when I want you, Saddy.”

  The Professor patted my shoulder, and SP gave my hand a little squeeze. Then we were alone.

  “Please make yourself comfortable,” said Miss Lillingworth. Which was hard to do on her horsehair sofa that was about as comfy as a rock. She sat on a straight-backed chair opposite me, and put her hands in her lap. “I shouldn’t say it, my dear, but we shall do much better without Saddy. You know what I mean.” If she wasn’t such a lady, I’d swear she winked at me. “He always likes to jump in and be doing something when sometimes what you have to do is simply wait. You say you have never had a reading from an object or token before?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “But you have the ability to find lost things, I believe. How long have you had that?”

  I thought carefully. “Always, I think, ma’am. I used to find Ma’s bits and pieces when I was little, and then at Madame’s, it was the same. I never thought about it much. She was very forgetful, was Madame.”

  “Has your gift changed lately in any way?”

  “My fingers start to itch.” I thought hard. “I get a bit more of a picture in my mind’s eye than I used to. This thing with the painting and the snake, though – that’s new, that is.”

  “It frightened you, I can see. And it came out of the blue? Unexpectedly?”

  I nodded.

  “Then something has initiated a new phase of psychic perception. Those experiments are the most likely cause. It seems they are developing your psychic skills, in rather the way that practice on an instrument improves one’s musical skills.” She gave a gentle horsy smile. “Let me tell you something about myself. When I was in my late twenties, after a severe illness, I gained the ability to ‘read’ objects. The impressions would come at any time, in any place and, like you, I found them frightening and sometimes overwhelming. To tell you the truth, at first I thought I was going mad and didn’t tell anyone. I prayed a great deal.” She paused. “And then gradually I became aware that just as I had the power to receive these impressions, so did I have the power to block them out.”

  “How did you do it, ma’am?”

  “I trained my mind. I would picture myself pulling down a window blind, so that the impression was hidden from view.”

  A blind. Would that do the trick for me? Perhaps I had better think of myself shutting the lid of a hatbox, or snipping off a length of ribbon.

  She must have seen how I was frowning, for she said quickly, “You will find your own method, my dear. For some people, it is deep breathing. Just remember that you are not at the mercy of your talent. It is a gift, and you may be able to help people, to set their minds at rest.” She made a floaty sort of gesture with her hands. “I use my gift as a service to mankind, and I never, never charge.”

  Charge? Whatever was she on about?

  “Now, may I try to gain some impressions of my own?”

  I said I didn’t mind, and so Miss Lillingsworth held her hands about an inch away from my body, and ran them, without touching, all over my head, neck and chest.

  “Ah!” she said. At the same moment that I felt a sharp tingle on my collarbone. She pointed to the spot. “What have you there? Is it a locket?”

  “It’s just a lucky piece,” I said. “On a cord. Ma gave it to me.”

  “May I see it, please?”

  I slipped it over my head and handed it to her. She held it on the flat of her palm and looked at it with a puzzled expression for a few seconds. Then she shut her eyes.

  At first I watched her but that seemed rude, so I studied
the clock on the mantelpiece instead. The clock ticked away and Miss Lillingsworth still had her eyes shut, so then I inspected her ornaments. She had a china cat and a bouquet made of shells and a very ugly pair of vases with peacock feathers in them. I looked at her again. Her mouth was twitching slightly, but her breathing was now so slow and steady that I thought she’d fallen asleep.

  “How many sisters do you have?” she asked abruptly, blinking her eyes open.

  Before I could answer Millie poked her head in the door.

  “Miss Maria, it’s high time you had your tea,” she said. “So I’m bringing it in now. Here come the gentlemen.” And she waddled off towards the kitchen.

  SP and the Professor came into the room, followed by Millie with the tea tray. When we were all settled with teacups, and bread and butter, the Professor couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “Anything to report, Maria?”

  Miss Lillingsworth held out my lucky piece. The Professor briefly examined it, and then looked expectantly at Miss Lillingsworth.

  “What do you know about the seventh son of a seventh son, Saddy?”

  The Professor thought for a few seconds, and Miss Lillingsworth nibbled at a slice of buttered bread.

  “A sort of mystical power has long been given to the number seven,” he began, talking away as usual like he’d swallowed the dictionary. “The seven hills of Rome, Seven Wonders of the World, that sort of thing. The seventh son of seventh son is supposed to be particularly lucky.” He was warming up now, I could tell. “Indeed, he is supposed to inherit a miraculous power of–”

  Miss Lillingworth cut him off in full flood. “It isn’t just the seventh son of a seventh son who has this reputation. It’s less well known, but the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter is also believed to have special powers.”

  “Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. How fascinating,” said the Professor. He took out his little notebook and pencil and began to scribble, but Miss Lillingsworth put her hand on his arm and stopped him.

  “Just listen, Saddy. Years ago I spent some time governessing in Orleans. That’s in France,” she said in an aside to me. “My employer, Madame de Puy, had five daughters and she was desperate for a son. She went to consult an old lady, Mère Lauriel, who was famous in the district. They called her a septième étoile.”

  “Septième étoile? A seventh star?” said the Professor. “What – or who – is that?”

  “It is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,” said Miss Lillingsworth patiently. I could see that she’d have been a good teacher.

  “Please go on, Maria,” said SP.

  “A septième étoile may have a number of gifts. Mère Lauriel could see the future. But she told me that others can look back into the past. And some of them …” Here she turned to me. “Some of them, Verity, can find that which is lost.”

  “Ah,” breathed the Professor. “I see.”

  “What happened?” I asked, still caught up in the story. “Did your employer have a son, after all?”

  “She did. As a matter of fact, she had twins.” Miss Lillingsworth held out my lucky piece again. “This is Verity’s, Saddy. Her mother gave it to her. I recognised it as soon as I saw it. Mère Lauriel had a little medal just like this, engraved with the sign of the seventh–”

  “The seven stars!” I burst out. So that was the point of Miss Lillingsworth’s story. Could it be that my gifts – teleagtivism and psychometry, as the Professor would put it – were something handed down to me, mother to daughter, like family jewels? I thought of Ma, just after Pa died, feverish with typhoid. What did she know about the seven stars? My mind was whirling around so fast that it was hard to think or speak clearly. Or even speak at all. “Miss Lillingsworth, are you saying … do you think … am I a seventh star?”

  She took my hand. “You have very special gifts. Now, tell me, how many sisters do you have?”

  They were all watching me, kind and concerned, expecting an answer. And what could I tell them?

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” The Professor was taken aback. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I don’t rightly know if I’ve got any sisters or not. You see, my uncle Bill told me something the day I left Madame Louisette’s.” I took a deep breath and got it over with. “He told me that I was a foundling left in a basket outside my father’s shop. Ma and Pa adopted me for their own, and never told me nothing about it. They was –” I remembered Judith’s grammar lessons at last, and I gulped back a sob as I corrected myself “–were the best, the kindest, the lovingest …”

  A handkerchief was pressed into my hand. I blew into it, and straightened my shoulders.

  “Verity, why didn’t you tell me this?” asked the Professor.

  “You never asked.”

  The Professor winced ever so slightly. But it was true. All he’d been interested in was his blessed experiments, not me.

  “I’m sorry, Verity.” He stared at his polished boots for a few seconds before he met my eye. “Harriet would be ashamed of me. She would have asked you about your family. She would have been kinder to you than I have been.”

  Harriet was the Professor’s wife, who’d passed on three years ago. Judith had told me a bit about her. She sounded like she’d been very clever and very kind. The Professor blew his nose very loudly, and handed the lucky piece back to me.

  “Did your mother tell you anything about this medallion, Verity?”

  “No, she gave it me just before she died. I’ve kept it all this time.” I held up the battered little piece. “I haven’t got much to remember them by, you see.”

  “So,” said Miss Lillingsworth. “Is it possible, Saddy, that you could find the identity of Verity’s real mother?”

  “Ma was my real mother,” I said.

  She gave me a sad smile. “Quite so, my dear.”

  “Why can’t you help us to find Verity’s birth mother, Maria?” the Professor burst in. “Surely the token would be enough to accomplish some kind of a reading?”

  “I have held it already,” she said. “I was receptive, and I received nothing clear. I sensed a long history, and many hands, and great sorrow. That is all.”

  “What about you, Verity? Have you tried?”

  I put the lucky piece on my palm and closed my hand and shut my eyes and waited. Nothing. Nothing at all.

  “It is clearly a case for the Confidential Agents,” said Miss Lillingsworth. “Or for …” She turned to the Professor and whispered something in his ear. He turned to me with a serious expression on his face.

  “That is for Verity to say,” he said.

  “But of course, Saddy.”

  “Verity, Maria would like you to go to a gathering with her.”

  “What sort of gathering, if you please, ma’am?”

  “A seance.”

  Another word I didn’t know. I looked from her to the Professor.

  “A seance is a meeting of people who are seeking to communicate with the departed,” he said. “Spiritualists believe that–”

  SP broke in. “Please, Father. You promised.”

  I looked from one to the other. What were they talking about?

  SP turned to me. “A seance is a meeting with the dead.”

  11

  POISON-PENS

  I said yes. But that night when I was lying sleepless in my bed I began to wish I hadn’t. This was getting in too deep. How many times had I longed for a word, just one loving word, from Ma since she’d passed? But when it came down to it, did I really want to speak to her? As far as I understood it, when you died you went up to heaven. And stayed there, “peacefully resting”, as it said on Ma’s gravestone. But Miss Lillingsworth seemed to think that dead people were all around us in some kind of spirit world. Just floating around. It didn’t seem right nor natural.

  The seance was in a week’s time. I would have moped and fretted until then, and worn out the lucky piece with putting it on and off a
nd staring at it as if it could talk. But that morning, the letters began.

  The first one came from “a friend”.

  Verity Sparks,

  Who do you think you are? Get back to the gutter where you belong or something bad will happen. That’s a promise.

  A friend

  No address. It hadn’t been posted, either – no stamp – so someone must have come up to the house and put it in the letterbox. But who? Miss Charlotte came to mind. She was the only person I could think of who’d bear me a grudge, and since I didn’t care two hoots about her, I just screwed it up and put it in the rubbish where it belonged.

  The next one came not to the Plush household, but to the Professor’s cousin, Mrs Honoria Dalrymple. We only knew what was in it because that afternoon at teatime there was the sound of a carriage coming down the drive.

  “Who could that be?” asked the Professor, looking up from the anchovy toast. “Have you invited anyone to tea, my dears?”

  Before any of us could answer there was a tremendous banging at the door, and instead of waiting to be let in, a tall red-haired woman rushed into the room, huffing and puffing like an engine.

  “Sit down, dear Honoria,” said the Professor, pulling up a chair for her. “You look close to an apoplexy.”

  “Explain this!” she cried, thrusting a letter at him. “It was hand-delivered this very morning, and I came as soon as I could.” She turned and stared at me with a most unfriendly expression on her face. “And this, I suppose, is the young person, Verity Sparks?” She said my name like a horse had done its business right under her nose. All I could do was stand and curtsey, while she stood there breathing heavily, one hand clutched to her huge bosom. “Read it, Saddington.”

  Shaking his head, he began.

  “Dear Mrs Dalrymple,

  I am writing to you as one who holds family honour dear, and does not like to see RESPECTABLE people imposed upon by GUTTERSNIPES who are only out to feather their own nests and ensnare innocent and well-meaning people into entanglements which may prove DETRIMENTAL to their reputations.

  Did you know that your cousin’s daughter, Miss Judith Plush, has as a constant companion AND LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE, a common young person, Verity Sparks, who was until a very short while ago, a COMMON MILLINER’S APPRENTICE? She has WORMED her way into the Plush household. Your own reputation may even suffer from this UNFORTUNATE connection, and I cannot urge you too strongly, Mrs Dalrymple, to ACT!