Rose Campion and the Curse of the Doomstone

by Lyn Gardner

  Rose was about to say that Gandini’s magic tricks brought pleasure to people, when she saw Amy looking at Gandini with a frown, and then Effie spoke excitedly.

  “That man’s still there! Leastways he was a few years back. Me ma and me went for a day trip to Southend. Everyone round Shoreditch way used to call it Whitechapel on Sea. It was luverly. One of the nicest days of me whole life. It was before me ma’s accident and we…” She trailed off sadly. Rose saw Amy shoot Effie a sympathetic look, and she warmed to the quiet, gawky girl in her ugly yellow dress.

  “Lifts the spirits to be by the sea,” said Lottie quickly. “I should know, I was raised in Deal. I still sometimes fink I can ’ear the sea when I put me ’ead on the pillow and shut me eyes at night.” And she broke into the chorus of a popular ditty about the delights of the seaside, and everyone sang along for a few bars.

  “I’ve never seen the sea,” said Rose wistfully.

  “You’re deprived. We should take a day trip on the train,” said Aurora. “Where shall we go?”

  “Brighton,” said Jem. “That pier is one of the seven wonders of the world.”

  “Southend is better,” piped up Amy, and everyone looked at her, because she so rarely spoke. “Gandini is right. Southend is the very taste of the sea. And you can get right away from the crowds if you walk a bit to the north where there are little brightly coloured fishermen’s cottages, and oyster dredgers and the cockle sheds. One day I’m going to live there and be free, and feel the salt spray on my tongue every single day. And I’ll eat a penny lick bought from the blind man every day too.”

  Everyone laughed, and the girl’s eyes were shining as if she was lit from within and had suddenly come fully alive. Rose was about to ask her more, when Lydia’s voice could be heard calling for Amy. The girl sighed, pushed back her red-gold hair, stood up and walked reluctantly inside, and the conversation broke up. There was something about her resigned demeanour that made Rose wonder whether Lydia was always kind to Amy.

  Rose, Effie and Aurora moved away from the main group and perched themselves on two upturned buckets and a broken chair by the open gate. Ophelia, the cat, jumped on to Rose’s knee. Aurora picked up some discarded balls and started to juggle, a skill that she had never grasped and showed absolutely no sign of mastering now. Effie diligently practised palming a coin as Rose indignantly told her what Inspector Cliff had said about Thomas and Campion’s.

  “It’s outrageous,” said Rose resentfully, “that he can even think that Thomas might be involved in any way with the theft of the Doomstone.”

  “He didn’t actually say Thomas had stolen the diamond,” said Aurora soothingly as she dropped all three balls, the noise making Ophelia dig her claws into Rose’s lap.

  “No,” said Rose, “he didn’t. But that’s what he implied. Or that Thomas had allowed Campion’s to be used for some shady purpose and that’s how he found the money to save the hall from those grasping bankers. But we know that’s not how he found the money.”

  “How did he get it then?” asked Effie, looking interested. Aurora looked warningly at Rose. They both knew that as soon as Edward had come into his inheritance he had given Thomas the money; Thomas had immediately insisted that it must be a loan, not a gift, and was already paying it back. But neither man wanted the arrangement widely broadcast.

  “He managed to borrow it,” said Rose shortly. “I just hope that he’s explained that to the inspector.”

  “We all know that Thomas isn’t the guilty party,” said Rory, “but we’ve never really had a chance to discuss who we think did steal the Doomstone.”

  “Well, it weren’t me,” said Effie quickly. Rose laughed.

  “None of us think it was, Effie.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” said Effie darkly. “Mud sticks. Some people say once a prigger, always a prigger. That you can’t change your ways.”

  “Do you really believe people think that about you, Effie?” asked Rory.

  “I dunno,” said Effie sadly, “but Lottie said she heard one of them ballet girls tellin’ that Billy Proctor ’bout my history, and how me mum is in Holloway. If she told ’im, she probably told the inspector and the whole of bloomin’ Southwark.” Rose saw Rory blush, and she guessed that Lydia probably also knew all about Effie’s background.

  “I wish I’d been there,” said Rose furiously. “I’d have soon put them both right. But you shouldn’t worry, Effie. Thomas will have told the inspector that he trusts you with his life.”

  “Yes,” said Effie darkly, “but what if the inspector don’t trust Thomas? If that’s the case, what he says won’t be worth sixpence.” Rose and Rory looked at each other. Effie was right.

  “It’s all the more reason,” said Rose, “why we need to think hard about who might really be responsible for the theft of the Doomstone.” She stroked Ophelia under her chin. “Bet you know who did it, puss. You were there, under the table. I bet you saw everything.” She looked at the others. “I reckon it could be Billy Proctor. We don’t really know anything about him, and he was leaning over the table delivering some drinks just at the point that the Doomstone went missing.”

  “But if it was him, don’t you think he’d have skipped Campion’s immediately after? Why’s he still here if he’s the thief?” asked Aurora.

  Effie nodded. “Anyways, Rosie. You’ve seen how clumsy he is. Reckon it’d be way beyond ’im to carry a tray and prig the diamond at the same time.”

  Rose smiled. It was hard to think of Billy Proctor with his butterfingers having the necessary sleight of hand to steal the Doomstone, but maybe his clumsiness was all an act. Maybe he wasn’t all he seemed. Rose glanced over to the stage door, where Jem had started a card game with a couple of the stagehands. They were each betting against their hands and, judging by the big pile of coins by his side, Jem was winning. One of the stagehands threw down his cards in disgust and tossed Jem a coin.

  “You’ve got the luck of the devil, Jem Dorries. I ain’t playing no more.” He walked away.

  “You don’t think…?” said Effie doubtfully as she followed Rose’s gaze. She stopped as if she couldn’t bear to say more.

  “Surely not!” said Rory, shaking her head. “Jem is Campion’s family.”

  Rose frowned. “He is. But he has been flush since the night the Doomstone went missing. Throwing it about too.” She shook her head. “But I can’t believe that Jem is responsible.”

  “Who else could it be?”

  “Not Gandini, he was never close enough,” said Rose.

  Effie nodded. “Can’t have been him what filched it. Not unless he had an invisibility cloak so he could get up close to Lydia.”

  “Amy?” asked Rose.

  Effie shook her head and Rory looked shocked. “Not very likely, Rose. She’s such a nervous little thing, hardly a criminal mastermind.”

  “I like her,” said Effie. “When she gets the chance she watches me rehearse with Gandini.”

  “I thought he didn’t like anybody watching?” asked Rose curiously.

  “He don’t,” said Effie. “But he don’t seem to mind Amy. Maybe it’s because she’s so quiet you don’t know she’s there. I’ve never heard them exchange a word, but he seems fine with her being there.”

  “What about Stratford-Mark? Everyone says he has money troubles.”

  “Sitting too far away from Lydia,” said Rose.

  “If we can discount them all, it must be that man you saw, Rose, the one who told us about the Doomstone in the first place at the theatre,” said Aurora.

  Rose frowned. “But if he was planning to snaffle the Doomstone later in the evening, why draw attention to himself by telling us about it? But I suppose it does seem the most likely explanation,” she said, as Ophelia jumped off her lap, wandered a little way off and began delicately cleaning her ears. “The only other person close enough to steal the Doomstone from Lydia’s neck was Edward, and we all know it’s as mad to think it was him as it would be to think it
was Thomas.”

  “Unless of course,” said Rory with a wicked smile, “Edward has been deceiving us all along, and all that time he was in America he was only pretending to be an actor and really he was a jewel thief.”

  “Likely story,” laughed Effie.

  Rose nodded. “It appears that the only one who really knows the truth of what happened to the Doomstone is Ophelia.”

  “Ophelia? Who is this Ophelia who knows the truth about the Doomstone?” asked a sharp voice with a distinct American twang behind them. They swung round. It was Lydia. She was right behind them, standing by Edward’s side as pale as a pearl, her eyes alert and darting. The three girls burst out laughing.

  “It’s the cat,” shrieked Rory. “Ophelia is the Campion’s cat.”

  “Oh,” said Lydia. She placed her hand against her chest as she said lightly, her accent all but gone and with a twinkle in her eye, “Maybe our good Inspector Cliff would like to interview this Ophelia. Maybe information supplied by the cat would advance his investigation, which to date doesn’t appear to be making the slightest bit of progress.”

  Edward opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment there was a shout from the stage door and Thomas appeared, waving a newspaper.

  “Rose! Rose!” he roared. “Have you seen this?” Rose stood up, shocked by Thomas’s tone. He hardly ever shouted, and never at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Inspector Cliff, who she hadn’t noticed was out in the yard, watching closely. She clocked Gandini and Amy, who suddenly appeared together at the stage door by the inspector’s side. Some of the stagehands, who had heard Thomas’s shout and were agog to know what was going on, pushed past them and out into the yard, followed by Billy Proctor, who sauntered over to the wall and leaned against it looking on in interest. Only Tobias Fraggles was looking in the other direction, his eyes fixed on Lydia. Aurora said that he reminded her of a faithful dog, the way he followed Lydia with his eyes. All this happened in a blink and then Thomas was upon her and waving the newspaper in her face. It was the first edition of a widely read paper that specialised in scandal and gossip. The headline read: “Missing Doomstone: Inside Job or Elaborate Hoax?”

  Rose gasped. But it was as she started to read the story that her hands began to shake. “Earlier this evening Rose Campion, daughter of Thomas Campion of Campion’s music hall, scene of the theft of one of the world’s most valuable diamonds, the Doomstone, told our reporter that in her opinion it was an inside job. ‘The Doomstone is missing, but do we know it’s been stolen?’ Miss Campion told our reporter coyly, and she made no denial when challenged as to whether she thought somebody from Campion’s was responsible for the loss of the jewel, which has a curse attached to it. Instead Miss Campion declared that somebody from inside the building must have been responsible for its disappearance.” The report then continued snidely: “It is well known that earlier this year Thomas Campion faced financial embarrassment and that creditors were poised to take control of Campion’s music hall, when he miraculously found the money, believed to be a substantial sum, to pay off all his debts. Nobody knows where the money came from to save the ailing hall from falling into the hands of creditors and Mr Campion from falling into a debtors’ prison. Since then Campion’s appears to have gone from strength to strength, but industry insiders say that Campion’s must still find it hard to compete with bigger and smarter music halls. A source, who did not want to be named, suggested that the disappearance of the Doomstone might simply be an elaborately stage-managed hoax designed to attract publicity for the music hall and boost audience numbers. Rose Campion verified that the disappearance of the Doomstone had been excellent for business, confirming that the music hall has been packed every night since the Doomstone was stolen. ‘Long may it continue,’ said Miss Campion.” Rose lowered the paper feeling sick. Everyone’s eyes were on her.

  “I didn’t… I wouldn’t…” she whispered. But was that true? She had spoken to the reporter, even though he had twisted her words and misinterpreted what she had meant.

  “Oh, Rosie, Rosie,” said Thomas. “Are you trying to ruin me?”

  “Oh, Thomas, of course not,” cried Rose, tears falling down her cheeks.

  “Come,” said Edward, putting his hand on both Thomas’s and Rose’s shoulders and guiding them back towards the stage door. “Let’s go inside and discuss this. Thomas, you know that Rose loves Campion’s as much as you do, and would never do anything to threaten its future. This must all be a terrible mistake.” He appeared to be looking straight at Inspector Cliff. “And, publicity stunt or no publicity stunt, we all know, Thomas, that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of the Doomstone. It’s ridiculous. As ridiculous as thinking that Lydia stole the diamond from around her own neck, or that I spirited it away.”

  9

  Two days later, a subdued Rose and a nervous Effie stood holding hands and looking across the road at the forbidding entrance of Holloway Prison as they waited for several horse and carts and cabs to pass. Edward, Thomas and Mr Cherryble were standing just behind them. Thomas rested his hands lightly on both the girls’ shoulders and pulled them back a little as a carriage lashed by, kicking up a spray of dirty water from the gutter. Thomas left his hand on Rose’s shoulder and gave it a quick little squeeze. She was grateful. She knew it meant they were back to normal. She hated to think that she might have done anything to throw suspicion on Thomas, however unintentionally.

  “He twisted my words to suit his own theory,” Rose had explained tearfully in Thomas’s study.

  Thomas had shaken his head. “It’s what these reporters do. It’s why I told you not to talk to them.” He sighed. “I don’t know, Rosie. You’re supposed to be the one with all the brains.”

  “I’m so sorry, Thomas, I wasn’t thinking. I know it’s no excuse but I was distracted.”

  “Listen,” said Edward calmly, “there’s probably no real harm done. Inspector Cliff isn’t going to go round making any arrests on the basis of speculation in a downmarket rag.”

  Thomas had sighed. “I’m sure you’re right, Edward. And it’s not as if I have anything to hide. But the inspector makes me nervous the way he lurks here all the time watching, like a hunter just waiting for his prey to make a mistake.” He looked at Rose and gave a glum smile. “Just don’t go round talking to any more reporters.”

  Rose had nodded. “I won’t. I promise.”

  Rose looked up at Holloway looming out of the yellowish afternoon haze. There was a strong smell of cabbages and drains. The prison resembled an unpleasant castle in a particularly nasty gothic novel. It looked as if it would be infested with bats and spiders and its walls would be damp with sadness.

  Rose shivered and she felt Effie clutch her hand tighter. It was a horrible place. Rose had never known her birth parents, and she had sometimes envied Aurora for finding her father and Effie for the fact that she had a mother, albeit one incarcerated in Holloway Prison for stealing a watch, a crime that she hadn’t actually committed. Effie’s mum, Iris, had taken the blame for the theft to save Effie – who had been coerced into stealing by the malevolent Josiah Pinch – from going to prison. It had been an extraordinary act of motherly love but it had left Iris behind bars. Rose wondered if it was far worse to be living just a few miles apart like Effie and her mum, but quite unable to see each other, than having no mother at all.

  For Rose, her lack of a mother felt like a dull pain that never went away, but which she had learned to live with, like an unpleasant headache. But she knew that Effie loved her mother fiercely and once, when Effie had been particularly down and was confiding in Rose, she had said that being constantly separated from her mother felt like having a small animal inside her gnawing at her heart with razor-sharp teeth.

  “Yer know, Rosie, sometimes I think I might just drop down stone dead overcome by the pain an’ longing to see her and have her arms round me again. A mother’s hug is different from any other hug in the world.” She had seen Rose’s face
. “Oh, Rosie, I’m sorry. I forgot. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  Rose had put her arm around Effie and said, “Oh, Effie, I’m the lucky one. Unlike you, I don’t know what I’m missing.” But she had still felt a pang at her own motherless state, and the fact that, unlike Effie, she had no idea who her mother had been and wouldn’t have known her if she passed her in the street.

  Rose knew that no one would be allowed to accompany Effie when she was taken to the sanatorium in the women’s part of the gaol, where she would be briefly reunited with her sick mother, but she had wanted to come to support Effie as best she could and be there for her afterwards. Aurora would have come too but she had been carried off protesting by Lydia who wanted to take Rory to tea at Lady Fitzcillian’s house in Mayfair, and then on to a rehearsal at the Pall Mall where Lydia was preparing to play Lady Macbeth, which Rose thought was the most improbable piece of casting she had ever heard. Lydia was always so sweet. Effie had challenged Aurora to bring back cakes for her and Rose.

  “You can slide them into your knickerbockers. But be careful not to squash them. Me mum won’t believe that I’m goin’ to eat a pastry from Lady Fitzcillian’s Mayfair residence. She’ll be impressed I move in such lardy-dardy circles.”

  Rose didn’t want to be cynical about Lydia’s proposed trip with Aurora, but she was pretty sure that Lydia’s interest in Aurora extended only as far as Edward. But maybe she was being too distrustful. Everyone appeared enchanted by Lydia. Even Thomas seemed quite charmed, and Rose couldn’t help thinking back to that moment in Edward’s dressing room, when Lydia looked as if she had been struck by a thunderbolt, to know that Lydia’s feelings for Edward were genuine.

  They walked through the gap in the iron railings that surrounded the prison to the main entrance, which with its two stone turrets resembled a threatening medieval stronghold. They passed under the stone archway and through a smaller door made of thick black wood studded with iron. Just inside was a gatehouse, where Mr Cherryble gave his and everyone’s name and said that they had an appointment to see the governor of the women’s part of the prison, Julia Devonish. Julia Devonish had a reputation as a reforming governor, and had spoken loudly and publicly about the harshness of the courts, and how many of the women who ended up locked up in Holloway were there because of adverse circumstances rather than wickedness, and that their punishment fell as much on the families and the children of the mothers locked up as it did on the women who had been caught and convicted of a crime.