Somebody Stop Ivy Pocket

by Caleb Krisp

  The carriage had entered a lane and slowed, turning in through a pair of gates. We were dragged from the carriage in a most undignified display and shoved through a door and into a long, dank corridor. It was impossible to know where we were.

  Matilda put up a brave fight. And I was wonderfully vicious. There was a great deal of scratching and kicking. But it was all in vain. We were carried in. Pushed to the back of the cell. Held there as one of our ankles was shackled, tethered by a length of chain to the wall behind us. They even stole our watches.

  ‘You cannot do this!’ roared Matilda. ‘I am a Butterfield, you blockheads! Have you any idea what my grandmother will do to you when she finds out what you’ve done?’

  ‘She’s got to find you first, ain’t she?’ said the tall one.

  Which was shocking grammar. But largely true. The disagreeable hoodlums checked the shackles, making sure the padlocks were secure. They muttered something about a pint of beer, then began to leave. Which, strange as it may sound, terrified me more than if they had stayed.

  ‘Do not leave us here!’ shrieked Matilda. ‘Unlock these chains!’

  They were at the door now. Soon to be gone.

  Desperate for a morsel of information about our plight, I tried a less abusive approach. ‘I realise you poor fellows are probably the product of defective parenting,’ I said, oozing charm, ‘and therefore, can hardly be blamed for kidnapping us. But would you be so kind as to tell us where we are?’

  The shorter of the two ruffians took pity. ‘Lashwood,’ he said.

  The metal door swung shut. I heard the heavy bolt slide into place.

  Chapter 23

  ‘But Lashwood is a madhouse,’ I said, feeling rather mystified. ‘Who would want to lock us in a madhouse? I’m not even slightly bonkers.’

  Everyone had heard of Lashwood. It was an insane asylum in Islington of the most unpleasant variety. The worst in all of London, some said. Which begged the question – what was going on?

  ‘This is a mistake!’ shouted Matilda, stomping her foot. ‘Let us out! We do not belong here!’ She turned to me, trying bravely to control her tears. ‘Do something, Pocket!’

  Screams of anguish and madness could be heard through the damp walls. A rat scurried across the floor at great speed.

  ‘My options are rather limited at the present moment, dear,’ I said, tugging the chain around my ankle for effect. ‘We will simply have to wait for someone who isn’t a kidnapping thug to come by, so we can straighten this whole thing out.’

  The girl began to howl. Pull on her chain. Call for a constable. Demand fresh bloomers and a bubble bath. She only stopped when we heard the bolt on the door sliding back. Matilda and I exchanged anxious and hopeful looks as the door opened and a rather hefty woman in a grimy black and white dress came in with a bucket and ladle.

  She stopped a few feet away from us and stuck a finger up her nose, foraging about with abandon.

  ‘Water?’ she said with little enthusiasm.

  ‘Water?’ bellowed Matilda. ‘Unlock us, you ghastly trollop!’

  She looked at me. ‘Water?’

  ‘Allow me to explain our situation – we are two perfectly upstanding girls who were wickedly taken from Hyde Park and locked in this horrid madhouse. You look like a kind-hearted sort, so would you be so kind as to ask one of the doctors to pay us a visit?’

  ‘What’s in it for me, then?’

  Luckily, I was ready for such a question. ‘Are you a spinster, dear?’

  She frowned. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Well, I know a shoemaker in Bristol in search of a wife. He specifically asked for a nose picker of wide girth.’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘I would be glad to pass on your particulars if you would talk to the doctor about visiting us.’

  ‘I hate Bristol,’ she said.

  ‘You have to help us!’ roared Matilda.

  ‘I hate Bristol,’ she said again.

  And with that she walked out and locked the door.

  Hours passed. I cannot be certain how many. Matilda quietened down.

  ‘Surely your mother will sound the alarm,’ I said hopefully.

  ‘Of course she will,’ snapped Matilda. Her hair had begun to wilt, the flowers coming loose and scattering around our feet like snowdrops. ‘Mother will be beside herself when she discovers I have not come home. She will summon the British army if that’s what it takes.’

  Which was awfully encouraging.

  ‘And Grandmother will have a fit!’ she declared. ‘That’s if her heart doesn’t give out – after what happened with Rebecca, I don’t think she could take another Butterfield disaster.’

  ‘Your cousin is alive,’ I heard myself say.

  Matilda laughed. Yes, laughed. I couldn’t blame her.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, Rebecca is alive.’ I slid down the wall and sat on the cold floor. ‘It’s a terrifically long story which doesn’t yet have an ending – but the fact remains, I have seen her and she lives.’

  ‘Maybe you do belong in here, Pocket – you’re mad.’

  ‘The Clock Diamond does more than just kill,’ I said softly.

  Matilda joined me on the floor, her knees tucked up inside her ball gown. ‘But how?’

  ‘When she wore the Clock Diamond her soul was taken to a place called Prospa. She is not happy there and suffers greatly, but I am doing my best to bring her back.’

  ‘Are you wearing it?’ Matilda’s eyes sparkled eagerly in the dim light. ‘Perhaps the necklace can help us get out of here – have you got it, Pocket?’

  I felt a stab of regret. Of longing. I shook my head.

  ‘You’re lying,’ hissed Matilda.

  Before I could reply the door opened with a torturous creak. Pale light from the corridor washed into the small cell. The doctor. It had to be the doctor!

  I heard the clicking of a cane over the stone floor – like the ticks of a grandfather clock. And it chilled me to the bone. For it couldn’t be. Could it? A bewildered frown was already settling on my face, just as Lady Elizabeth Butterfield walked into the dank chamber.

  ‘Welcome,’ said the old bat.

  Matilda and I leapt to our feet, our chains rattling in a ghastly symphony.

  ‘You don’t know how pleased I am to see you, dear!’ I cried, showering Lady Elizabeth with my most grateful, yet stunned, expression. ‘We have had the most shocking ordeal. Kidnapped. Pushed about. Chained to a wall. Haven’t we, Matilda?’

  The girl did not reply. She only grinned.

  ‘Matilda, is this true?’ said Lady Elizabeth, peering at her granddaughter.

  ‘Every word, Grandmother.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it,’ she huffed.

  Which was odd. I felt I was missing something. Why were they talking in such a strange manner? It only made sense when Matilda bent down and removed the shackle from around her ankle with ease. After all, it had never been locked.

  She kicked it away and took her place beside Lady Elizabeth.

  By this stage I was shaking my head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Lady Elizabeth lifted her cane and pointed it at me. ‘You filled Rebecca’s head with dangerous nonsense and I am certain it led to her death. And you destroyed Matilda’s birthday ball, making her the laughing stock of Suffolk. The Butterfield name is now mired in scandal and tragedy and it is all because of you, Miss Pocket.’

  ‘Grandmother didn’t think you were stupid enough to fall for our little trick,’ said Matilda brightly, ‘but I promised her that you were.’

  ‘We’ve had you followed for weeks,’ said Lady Elizabeth with delight.

  ‘This whole night has been …?’ I didn’t finish the sentence. It was too awful.

  ‘This whole night has been the beginning,’ said Lady Elizabeth. ‘The beginning of retribution for your sins, Miss Pocket.’

  The old bat was just as I remembered her. Head like a walnut. Hands like talons. Bony as a skeleton. Full of fury. Miss Frost
had warned me that Lady Elizabeth would direct her venom at me after Rebecca’s death, but I had not taken her seriously.

  ‘You cannot do this,’ I said. ‘A person cannot be committed to a madhouse without a doctor’s say-so. I have read of such things in perfectly reputable novels.’

  Lady Elizabeth huffed. ‘Never read a novel that didn’t make me want to shoot the author with a musket.’ She turned her wrinkled head towards the door. ‘Professor, come!’

  I did not know it, but a figure had been listening in the corridor outside, waiting for his cue. He walked briskly into the cell and smiled rather gushingly at Lady Elizabeth.

  ‘Professor Ploomgate is one of the most respected doctors in the country,’ said Lady Elizabeth, ‘and as I am a member of the board here at Lashwood and a rather generous benefactress, he agreed to assess your questionable mental state.’

  ‘How are you feeling, Ivy?’ said Professor Ploomgate.

  ‘Never better, dear,’ I said, as sanely as I knew how. ‘Apart from being the victim of a rather vengeful old bat and her hateful granddaughter.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Professor with a meaningful nod of his head.

  He was impossibly grim. Sour expression. Eyes of the green and bulging variety. A forehead so vast and furrowed, it was practically crying out for wallpaper. But as frightful as he appeared, he was a respected doctor and was certain to see through this wicked scheme.

  ‘Do you speak with ghosts, Ivy?’ he asked next.

  ‘Only when absolutely necessary,’ was my winning reply.

  ‘Very interesting.’

  ‘Now she thinks Rebecca is alive in some other world,’ Matilda added helpfully, ‘and just a short time ago, she told me she had visited there herself.’

  The Professor’s bulging eyes threatened to pop clear out of their sockets. ‘The patient said she had travelled to another world?’

  ‘Perhaps she has,’ said Matilda. ‘There is a necklace she possesses that is rather unusual.’

  ‘Claptrap!’ barked Lady Elizabeth. She hit the Professor’s shoe with her cane. ‘Is this not proof enough that she’s deranged?’

  ‘Is this true, Ivy?’ He stepped towards me. ‘Do you believe that you have left this world and reached another?’

  The situation was getting rather out of hand.

  ‘Look, Professor Plumcake,’ I said, ‘I think there has been –’

  ‘Ploomgate,’ he said tersely. ‘My name is Professor Ploomgate.’

  ‘Well, that’s not your fault, dear. It’s rather like your forehead – regrettable, but entirely out of your control. Now be a good man and unchain me.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ snapped Lady Elizabeth, hitting the Professor’s shoe again. ‘Here is a girl of low rank, a nobody, who tells wild stories about herself as easily as she breathes. If that isn’t a sign of mental disorder, I don’t know what is!’

  Professor Ploomgate lifted his head. Closed his eyes. Then opened them again and took a sharp intake of breath. ‘In my professional opinion the girl is disturbed.’ He turned and patted old walnut head on the shoulder. ‘You were right to bring her here, Lady Elizabeth.’

  ‘She only wants to punish me,’ I said urgently. ‘This is about revenge, Professor, not the state of my mind. If you can’t see that, dear, then you’re the mental patient.’

  Perhaps this wasn’t the best course of action. The professor walked from the cell, ignoring my loud protests.

  ‘Come, Matilda, let us go,’ said Lady Elizabeth.

  ‘Wait,’ said the girl.

  She stepped close to me and I could see the hunger in her eyes. ‘Where is it, Pocket?’

  And I knew just what she meant. The horrid girl searched my neck. And the pockets of my apron. And my dress.

  ‘What have you done with it?’ she hissed.

  ‘Rebecca is alive,’ I whispered, ‘and all you care about is the diamond that took her away. Shame on you, dear.’

  Something flashed over her face. It was fleeting. But it was there.

  She stomped towards the door. ‘I will meet you in the carriage, Grandmother.’

  Lady Elizabeth scowled at me for the longest time. I slid down the wall and sat again. Staring at the opened door. Longing to pass through it and be free.

  ‘Does it soothe your guilt, Miss Pocket, to imagine that Rebecca has escaped death and lives on in some far-flung world?’ she said curtly.

  ‘Does it soothe your guilt to lock me up in this place?’

  ‘Why should I feel guilt?’

  I looked up at her without fear. ‘Why were you not kinder? Why did you not try and understand about the clocks, about the piece of her that was missing?’

  ‘She looked in one piece to me,’ barked Lady Elizabeth. But she knew exactly what I meant. ‘The girl had lost her mother, did she need to lose her common sense as well?’ Her worn face hardened right before my eyes. ‘Rebecca needed a firm hand, not a soft touch.’

  ‘She needed you, dear. But instead of love you showered her with disapproval.’

  ‘Get comfortable, Miss Pocket,’ said the old bat, lifting her cane once more and pointing it at me, ‘for you are going to be an inmate at Lashwood for a very long time.’

  Chapter 24

  There was music in the madhouse. It went on all night. Care of a woman humming – her voice echoing down the empty corridor – no doubt some lunatic locked in another cell. She had just the one tune. And as soon as she finished humming it, she would start again.

  Her pitch was perfect, but as that first night stretched on in endless misery, and the tune was repeated again and again, I would gladly have smothered her with my apron.

  There were other voices, crowding the silence. Shrieks of lunacy. Wretched sobbing. One fellow called for his mother every ten minutes. Another swore like a pirate and made violent threats.

  I spent most of my time trying to lift the veil. Hoping to make the bleak madhouse fall away and Prospa House rise up. But without the Clock Diamond, all I managed to conjure up was a headache.

  Being a girl of bright ideas, I then decided to call upon the Duchess of Trinity.

  ‘I’d like to box your ears for trying to use me again for a horrid revenge,’ I said aloud. ‘But the thing is I’m in rather a pickle, and I was wondering if you could drop in and offer some assistance.’

  Nothing. Not even a ghostly cackle.

  As the cell was small and wretched, I passed the time in a variety of ways. Sitting was a great favourite. Walking about as far as my chain would allow also figured prominently. Professor Ploomgate had not visited again. The hefty woman in the grimy black and white dress would come with a bowl of gruel. A ladle of water. I did not change my clothes, for I had no others. I did not wash. I did not see the sky. Such was my new life.

  Three days passed like this.

  Someone new brought the gruel on day four (Saturday, I think – though it was hard to keep track). A boy of about nine or ten. Dark hair. Brown skin. Large hazel eyes. Interesting ears. He came in silently, carrying two buckets, and served me a helping of slop.

  As we were only fed twice a day, I ate it as if it were Mrs Dickens’ finest porridge. When I had scraped the very last dregs from the wooden bowl, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and handed it back to him.

  Then the boy did something most extraordinary. He filled the bowl with another helping of gruel. As if that were not enough, he then pulled a piece of stale bread from his pocket and handed it to me!

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a few uncooked potatoes in there, would you?’ I said, biting into the bread and savouring its crusty goodness.

  He looked at me strangely. As if eating raw potatoes required an explanation.

  ‘I’m a tiny bit dead,’ I said between mouthfuls, ‘and it’s had rather a strange effect on my appetite.’

  ‘Blimey,’ he replied, clearly impressed. ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up tomorrow.’

  ‘Have you worked in this ghastly place long?’

 
; ‘Just started this week. Pay’s terrible, but there’s plenty to eat and I can sleep down in the cellar most nights.’

  ‘You sleep here?’

  ‘When I have to.’

  ‘What’s your name, dear?’

  ‘Jago,’ was his answer. ‘If you’re being official like, I’m Oliver Jago, but it’s a rotter of a name, so I chucked it.’

  I used the last of the bread to mop up the gruel. ‘I knew an Oliver once. An orphan, of course, with hideous eating habits.’ I shoved the bread in my mouth and chewed it feverishly. ‘He was always asking for more. Which is frightfully bad form.’

  A bell sounded from somewhere up above us, signalling the end of dinner.

  Jago picked up the buckets. ‘See you tomorrow, I guess.’

  ‘Yes, dear, I’ll be waiting.’

  The boy stopped and looked back at me.

  ‘You’re awful young. What you in for then?’

  ‘Revenge,’ was my answer.

  He shrugged. ‘Good a reason as any.’

  I began to look forward to Jago’s visits most eagerly. He took to calling me chatterbox. Can’t think why. And would always give me extra gruel and bread. Even the odd potato (lovely boy!). In the few minutes we had, Jago would tell me of life outside – where he had gone around London foraging for an extra penny or two. He never said anything about his family. I assumed because he didn’t have one.

  Being a shy sort of girl, I was reluctant to speak about myself. But slowly I came out of my shell (not unlike a sea turtle) and told him a few snippets from my wondrous adventures. He seemed terribly impressed.

  As he was taking his leave one evening, the humming lady’s endless melody rolled in like an afternoon breeze. A very annoying breeze.

  ‘I’m to feed her next,’ he said eagerly. ‘She’s right mad, she is.’

  ‘Doesn’t she know any other tune?’