by Caleb Krisp
‘We must run you a bath and do something about your clothes. You wait here and have something to eat, while I see to all the details.’
‘Do hurry, dear, for I have some rather grim news to report.’
Estelle nodded and quickly walked from the drawing room. I sat back and took a long breath as I glanced around the sumptuous room. My friend would no doubt insist that I stay on with them. As a treasured friend and sister. It was sure to be a perfectly pleasant life.
Oh, but the Clock Diamond. And Rebecca. I could not forget my mission. At first light, I would return to the Snagsbys and demand the necklace back. Failing that, I would find a way to steal it, before they could use it again on another unsuspecting victim. But for tonight, I would allow myself a brief window of rest and fine food.
I closed my eyes. But the sound of sobbing out in the hall brought me quickly to my feet. I hurried out and found a maid carrying a tray up the stairs, crying like a rainstorm. It was Bertha, who had been so helpful on my last visit.
‘Whatever’s the matter, dear?’
It turned out that her mother had taken ill. And all she wanted to do was rush home to care for her, but first she had to serve Baron Dumbleby his coffee and read to him until he nodded off.
‘Here, give it to me,’ I said, taking the tray from her hands. ‘You go home to your mother and I will take the coffee to the Baron. I practically live here now.’
Bertha hurried away, wiping her eyes, and I made my way upstairs to the Baron’s private quarters.
I found the little aristocrat in his bed, propped up on a small mountain of satin pillows, fast asleep. His teeth were in a jar beside the bed and as he breathed in and out, his lips would sink into his mouth, then shoot out, flapping with abandon. It was delightful.
As I set the tray down beside the bed, he roused. His head lifted from the pillow then fell back again. Though still groggy, he seemed to recognise me. ‘Has she gone?’
‘Who, dear?’
‘Anastasia,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot bear to hear her … she will not stop.’
I frowned. The poor thing was still half asleep. ‘You are confused, Baron Dumbleby.’
‘She came back,’ said the old man, and his milky eyes stared intently into the darkness. ‘She came back to this house.’
‘Yes, I know all about that,’ I said, sitting on the bed beside him. ‘Do not ask me how – Bertha swore me to secrecy and I’m a girl of my word.’
Baron Dumbleby looked startled. ‘You know about Anastasia?’
‘Yes, dear, I just said as much.’
His trembling hand reached for mine. ‘We only wanted the truth about Sebastian – you understand, don’t you? We had no choice …’
‘No choice about what, dear?’
‘A year had passed without a word,’ said the Baron, ‘and then she turned up and told us such a tale – she was delirious.’
‘Who? Anastasia?’
‘That’s right.’ Estelle had come into the bedroom chamber. She stood with her back to the fire, a blue nightdress in her arms. ‘Anastasia told my mother that she and Sebastian had been married and that my brother was dead – my mother turned her away at the door.’
My mind was a fog. I was tired and hungry. It was hard to make sense of what I was being told. ‘Anastasia told your mother that Sebastian was dead?’
Estelle nodded curtly and threw the nightdress aside.
‘But if you knew …’ I stood up and let Baron Dumbleby’s hand slip from mine. ‘Why did you pretend that your mother had not set eyes on Anastasia since she dismissed her?’
‘Because she is a liar!’ hissed Estelle. ‘My mother searched the whole of England and could not find any record of a marriage between them.’ The girl looked at me with something like hatred. ‘I remember her sitting down on the stairs in the hall and telling my mother a story so absurd only a lunatic would believe a word of it.’
‘McCloud was our very best maid,’ declared the Baron, making no sense at all.
‘Hush, Uncle,’ said Estelle firmly, walking towards the bed.
The Baron chuckled. ‘Her name was McGrath, of course, but from the first moment Lady Vivian clapped eyes on her and saw that birthmark under her eye, shaped just like a cloud, it had to be McCloud!’
Something did not add up. I gazed at Estelle. ‘You said that when Anastasia came back your mother turned her away at the door, yet just now you said she was sitting on the stairs in the hall telling her tale.’
‘What does it matter?’ came the terse reply. ‘She sat on the stairs and spun a ridiculous story about being from some faraway world, cursed by a terrible plague.’
I gasped.
‘She wanted my mother to believe that when she was forced to return to this other world, Sebastian had followed her, even though he knew it would cost him his life.’ Estelle laughed coldly. ‘It was the ravings of a lunatic.’
Could it be? Was Anastasia – the mysterious lodger of whom no record could be found – from Prospa? It was shocking. But in a strange sort of way it made sense.
‘Sebastian loved her so much,’ I muttered to myself, ‘that he put on the Clock Diamond and went after her.’
Estelle lunged at me. ‘How do you know about that foolish necklace? It doesn’t exist! It is all lies!’ She shook me rather violently. ‘You saw her, didn’t you?’
I pushed the unhinged girl away. ‘Saw who, you mad cow?’ I patted down my filthy apron with great dignity. ‘As for the foolish necklace, if I weren’t sworn to secrecy, I would tell you that it certainly exists and that there is every chance that Anastasia’s story was utterly true.’
‘You are as deranged as she is!’ spat the girl.
‘The child will have no name,’ said Baron Dumbleby sadly.
I saw blind panic flash across Estelle’s face. ‘He is half asleep, his mind is confused.’
But it was already too late. ‘Anastasia was with child?’ I asked.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Estelle.
‘I didn’t see her after it was over,’ said the old man, his voice shaking, ‘but I heard her, for she would not stop that haunting –’
‘She wanted money,’ said Estelle, silencing her uncle again, ‘and my mother knew that Sebastian would never have married her. Yes, she carried a child, but it could not have been his and she was thrown out on to the street.’
But I didn’t believe her. That is why I turned my back on Estelle and looked at her uncle instead. ‘Anastasia had the baby here, didn’t she? That is what you meant when you said you didn’t see her after it was over.’
‘Do not speak, Uncle,’ ordered Estelle. ‘She means to use your words against us.’
But the Baron would not be stopped – he had a story and he meant to tell it. ‘The baby was coming as she sat on the stairs – what else was there to do? She was taken down to the basement where the child was born.’
‘And then?’ I said eagerly.
‘The only way to get her to speak the truth was …’ Baron Dumbleby shuddered, closing his eyes. ‘It was cruel, but the newborn was the only weapon. If she would just tell us what really happened to Sebastian she could have her child.’
I was shaking my head in disbelief. ‘You took her baby away?’
‘What else was my mother to do?’ said Estelle, pacing about the bedroom. ‘This girl claimed to be from another world, she claimed my brother and she had married there, and that he had perished. She was clearly insane and had no business caring for a child.’
My legs seemed to give way and I found myself slumping on the edge of the bed. ‘The baby – you gave it back to her, didn’t you?’
Estelle gave no answer.
‘McCloud was our very best maid!’ cried the Baron. ‘She took the infant away with two hundred pounds and orders not to return until we sent for her.’
My heart was a mallet trying to crack open my chest. Was such cruelty possible? But, of course, it was. ‘Where is the child now?’
�
�McCloud promised to love it as her own,’ said the Baron meekly. ‘She had longed for a baby so the child would be well cared for … the child would not suffer.’
‘They settled in Wales,’ said Estelle stiffly. ‘Mother did not wish to correspond with her, but I wrote this past winter and received a note back saying that she and the baby had left there seven years ago, leaving no forwarding address.’
‘And Anastasia,’ I said, ‘what of her?’
‘How should I know?’ snapped Estelle. ‘Mother told her that as soon as she confessed the truth about what she had done, we would return her child. She went on her way and we haven’t heard from her since.’
‘But surely – ?’
I stopped. My mind was circling back. To just a few minutes before. Something I had heard, but not listened to. It was as if the words were threads that had looped themselves into just the right holes, until it was possible to step back and see the finished tapestry. I jumped up off the bed and crouched down beside the Baron.
‘Listen to me,’ I said urgently.
The old man opened his eyes.
‘You said you could not bear to hear her – you were speaking of Anastasia, weren’t you?’
‘She would not stop,’ cried the old man. ‘Her voice carried up from the basement.’
‘Be silent, Uncle!’ Estelle came up behind me, trying to wrench me away. ‘Leave him alone – he is old and feeble of mind.’
I freed myself from her grasp with a small amount of slapping. Kept my gaze firmly on Baron Dumbleby. ‘What was it she would not stop, dear? What did you hear that haunts you so?’
‘Hush, Uncle!’ cried Estelle.
The Baron did not heed her, for he was somewhere far away. His dry lips, which had been sunken into his mouth, pushed out. Then a shaky but unmistakable melody came up and out of him.
‘Mmmm mm mmmm mm,’ he hummed.
‘Sleep and Dream, my Sweet’. The very tune I had heard day and night from my cell at Lashwood. They had separated Anastasia from her baby, then locked her away in Lashwood all these years.
I wanted to weep, but there wasn’t time.
‘You heard her, didn’t you?’ Estelle pulled me roughly to my feet, seizing my shoulders. ‘You heard her humming when you were at Lashwood?’
‘Yes,’ came my faint reply.
‘And you wonder why my mother had her locked away?’ Estelle’s eyes were wild and ferocious. ‘Every week for twelve years my mother would visit her and ask for the truth – offering her freedom if she admitted what she had done.’ She lifted her head defiantly. ‘And now I do the same.’
‘What you are doing is horrid! A child needs its mother and a mother needs her child!’ I pulled my arm free and took a shaky breath. ‘Your brother is dead, dear. You must accept it and stop punishing Anastasia – she did not kill him, I know that for a fact.’
‘She took him away and she must pay the price,’ came the cold reply.
I walked past the hateful girl and headed for the door. ‘I will tell the world what you have done – Anastasia does not belong in that place any more than I did.’
A door banged down below. Then came the sound of raised voices. Followed by hurried footsteps.
‘She is here!’ cried Estelle at the top of her lungs. She lunged at me, grabbing my wrist. ‘Please hurry, she has threatened me with a knife!’
I pulled free and ran.
Chapter 26
My escape was of the daring and death-defying variety. The house was swarming with orderlies from Lashwood and a constable or two. Clearly, when Estelle went to fetch a nightdress for me, she had sent word to the asylum. Or the police. Probably both.
They came charging up the main stairs, following Estelle’s wicked cries for help. Being breathtakingly canny, I took the servants’ stairs at the back. Came out by the kitchen door. I could hear a cook shrieking that she wasn’t hiding a fugitive in her larder.
I picked up a vase from a gilded table and threw it down the hallway, where it shattered against the far wall. This set them all into action. I hid around the corner as they spilled out of the kitchen, while others came rushing down the back stairs – all of them charging off in the direction of the broken vase.
Then I burst into the kitchen, sidestepped the cook, leapt over a toppled chair and charged out of the back door. The cook, being a jolly good sport, didn’t even sound the alarm.
Highgate was wonderfully deserted. The plump quarter-moon had vanished – probably behind a cloud – the sky capping the city like a black shroud. I didn’t slow until I was six or seven streets away, turning into Crumble Avenue and walking in the shadow of a fine apartment building.
There was so much in my head, I simply didn’t have room for it all. It churned with such fury that I couldn’t hold a thought for more than a moment or two. But the silence was rather soothing. So soothing that I didn’t sense the figure darting out from the shadows. Or their hands reaching for me. I was yanked from the footpath and thrust into a doorway.
‘You are a hard person to catch, Miss Pocket.’
‘Miss Frost!’ I cried.
‘Hush,’ she whispered firmly, ‘we do not wish to wake the whole of Highgate.’
The Mistress of the Clock began to remove her black gloves. She was just as I remembered her. Dark dress. Freckled face. Flaming red hair. ‘You need a bath,’ she said, looking me up and down.
‘How did you find me?’
‘With some difficulty,’ came the tart reply. ‘I tried to intercept you when you first broke out of Lashwood, but you seemed rather more interested in leaping on to the back of a carriage.’
‘That was you?’
She nodded. ‘I called to you, but apparently the carriage wheels obscured my voice.’
I was frowning now. ‘If you knew I was being kept prisoner in Lashwood, why did you not get me out?’
Miss Frost smiled faintly. ‘I have kept as close an eye on you as was possible – and to be frank, as unpleasant as Lady Elizabeth’s revenge was, in some ways you were safer in there.’ She glanced up and down the empty street. ‘Miss Always has led me on a wild goose chase – she is up to something, though I am yet to discover the particulars.’
It was hard to deny that, despite everything, I was rather delighted to see Miss Frost. But then I remembered the Snagsbys and Anastasia, not to mention Rebecca, and my heart hardened. There was so much to say. Naturally, I began with a firm scolding.
‘You sent me to the Snagsbys knowing they would start using the Clock Diamond again, didn’t you?’
‘I knew it was a distinct possibility.’
‘How could you do such a thing?’
‘The Snagsbys deal with people at the end of their journey here in this world,’ she explained coolly. ‘Who better to use the stone? The Clock Diamond’s work, though unpleasant, is of the utmost importance.’
‘It is murder! Mr Grimwig would have been next and he was perfectly healthy!’
‘Do stop shouting, Miss Pocket,’ was her calm reply. ‘It is most unbecoming and is likely to attract the attention of the gentlemen currently combing the streets looking for you.’
‘The Snagsbys are nutters,’ I said, lowering my voice, ‘murderous nutters. Now that they have the stone all to themselves, they will kill half of London before they’re done.’
‘What a feverish imagination you have.’
Then Miss Frost did the most remarkable thing. She reached into the sleeve of her dress and pulled out the Clock Diamond. Fixed it around my neck and tucked it under my dress. The stone began to glow like a lantern, warming against my skin. Its pulse was urgent, but within moments had slowed to match my heartbeat.
‘I suppose you had to kill them for it?’
Miss Frost rolled her eyes. ‘We discussed the matter like mature adults and after some persuasion, they relinquished the necklace.’
‘You should never have given it to them in the first place,’ I snapped.
‘Shortly after I began my ten
ure as Mistress of the Clock, I was able to retrieve the necklace from a rather unpleasant fellow in Istanbul. As my time in your world is rather limited, I needed a collaborator, someone who would use the stone in the most ethical way.’
I huffed. Scowled. Gave every indication that I violently disagreed.
‘I searched all of the places that might have access to the old and the sick – hospitals, funeral parlours, poorhouses – and came upon the Snagsbys.’
‘But how could they be so willing to kill?’ I said, shaking my head.
‘The Snagsbys couldn’t give their daughter a second chance, but they knew that for every soul they captured here, a hundred would be cured of The Shadow in my world.’ Miss Frost placed her finger under my chin and lifted it. ‘This plague of which I speak is a horror that I cannot describe, and children are particularly vulnerable.’
‘But what of the children from this world?’ I pushed her hand away. ‘I have seen Rebecca – why must she suffer so that children from Prospa can live?’
‘Rebecca chose her fate,’ came the heartless reply.
‘What are they doing to her in that ghastly place?’
‘Once a soul crosses into Prospa their very touch has great healing power,’ said Miss Frost, her gaze slipping from mine as she searched for the right words. ‘We call them Remedies and they are treated with the greatest reverence, but this new life comes with conditions and I freely admit that there is a cost.’
‘Well, the cost is too great, you cold-blooded fruitcake. Rebecca has the look of someone haunted, and poor Mr Blackhorn seems to be fading away.’
The Mistress of the Clock nodded her head soberly. ‘A Remedy’s healing power is not infinite – eventually it wears out.’
‘Which is just a nice way of saying they die all over again.’
‘They fade,’ said Miss Frost softly, ‘they fade away. I wish there was another way to help my people, but there is not.’
I desperately wanted to hate Miss Frost. Or at the very least, stomp on her foot. But I couldn’t. I may not have agreed with her methods, but I could see that she used the Clock Diamond reluctantly and that she understood the awful price.
