Rose Campion and the Curse of the Doomstone

by Lyn Gardner

  “You’re expected,” said the man in the gatehouse, and he nodded to a woman dressed in a uniform of a dark-blue dress and cap. The woman had a bunch of keys attached to her leather belt. “Mrs Hardy is the senior matron here. She will take you to Mrs Devonish’s office.”

  Mrs Hardy smiled at them and beckoned them to follow her. She stopped to unlock and allow them to pass through a heavy metal barred gate, which she then relocked. They were in a drab yard surrounded by the prison buildings with tiny slit windows. Mrs Hardy hurried them across the yard, selected another key from her bunch and opened a small wooden door, waiting until they were all on the other side before relocking it. She then led them up a small staircase and through another door that had to be unlocked and shut behind them. They stepped through into a long narrow corridor painted grey. From somewhere far away they could hear voices and the clang of keys on metal.

  “This way,” said Mrs Hardy, leading them around a corner. She came to a halt in front of an imposing panelled oak door. She opened the door. A woman sat behind a desk in a room lined with leather-bound ledgers. She stood up and smiled at the visitors, and pointed to another smaller oak door.

  “Mrs Devonish says you are to go through. I will provide some refreshments for you all.”

  Mrs Hardy rapped on the door, and a low voice called, “Come in.”

  “Your visitors, ma’am,” said Mrs Hardy with a bob, and she ushered them through.

  “Mr Cherryble, how lovely to see you. Charles sends his best wishes and hopes you will visit him at his club soon,” said the tall woman who stepped forward to greet them.

  Mr Cherryble made the introductions, and as he did so, Rose examined Julia Devonish covertly. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but she had a frank, kind and animated face and her gaze was direct. Her hair was cropped to a glossy nape-length raven bob – a daring cut for any woman, particularly one of her position and class.

  “And this,” said Mr Cherryble, “is Effie, who has come to visit her mother. We are so grateful that you permitted her this visit.”

  Julia took Effie’s hand. “I would have known you immediately. You look so much like your mother. You must be longing to see her, and you must wait no longer. But I must warn you, Effie, you will find your poor mother much changed. She is very sick indeed. The consumption is ravaging her.”

  Effie gazed up at Julia, her eyes trembling with tears. “Is my ma dying?”

  Julia put her arm around the girl’s thin shoulders. “I could lie to you, Effie, but I won’t patronise you by doing so. Your mother is very ill. The doctor does not think that she can live. You will have to prepare yourself for the worst. But she is looking forward to seeing you very much.” She smiled gently. “I will get Mrs Hardy to take you to see your mother now, so you do not waste a minute and have the longest possible time together. Would you like me to come with you?”

  Effie sniffed. “Rosie. I want Rosie to come with me.”

  Julia looked pained. “I’m afraid that is against the rules…” The conflict was clear on her face. Then she said firmly, “But rules are there to be broken, and I will take responsibility if there are any consequences. Mr Cherryble has told me that you are like sisters.” She walked to the door and opened it.

  “Mrs Hardy. Please take these girls to see Iris Madley in the sanatorium. Sister Havering knows that Mrs Madley is expecting her daughter today, and tell her I am sanctioning two visitors. Oh, and remind Sister Havering that Ruth Bray has an authorised visitor this afternoon. He is expected shortly.” She watched them leave, before turning back to the men.

  “Tea, gentlemen? And then I can bore you with my pet schemes for prison reform. It is a scandal that we keep these poor women locked up like this.”

  10

  Rose leaned against the grey wall in the narrow corridor, her eyes damp with tears. She had gone with her friend into the room where Effie’s mother lay on a narrow iron bedstead.

  Rose had been shocked to see how awful Iris Madley looked, propped up against two thin pillows. Her eyes were sunken in a face that was flushed with fever, but also shrunken and skeletal. Rose had pushed Effie towards the bed and murmured a greeting to Mrs Madley, but as soon as Effie had seized her mother’s thin, wasted hand and covered it with kisses, Rose had withdrawn to the corridor, close enough if Effie wanted her, but far enough away to allow mother and daughter some privacy. She could hear their smothered voices: Effie’s urgent and full of love, and her mother’s desperate gasping replies intercut with terrible wracking coughing fits.

  Rose paced miserably up and down the corridor. The kindly but clearly overworked Sister Havering had been called away to another room at the far end of the narrow passage as soon as she had taken the girls into Iris’s room. Rose continued pacing, finally coming to a stop outside the room next to the one where Iris was lying.

  As if sensing her presence a feeble voice called, “Is somebody there? Anyone? Please help a poor old woman if you are there?”

  Rose looked around, wondering if she should go and seek help from Sister Havering. But there was no sign of her. The voice called again. Rose poked her head shyly around the door. A pale woman, her sandy hair lying in wisps around her face, lay on the bed, her breathing cracked and laboured. She eyed Rose with sharp, beady surprised eyes and gestured her to come closer.

  “Help an old dying woman,” she rasped pitifully.

  Rose moved closer to the bed and a hand like a claw with a surprisingly strong grip caught her by the wrist. Rose had to resist the urge to break away, but she felt sorry for anyone locked up in this dreadful place.

  “What’s your name, dearie?” asked the woman. “Are you with that girl come to see Iris Madley?”

  “Do you know Iris?” asked Rose.

  “We were in the same room until she took a turn for the worse. Iris won’t see out the night. One of life’s losers, is Iris Madley. Is that her daughter?” Rose nodded. The woman’s feverish eyes narrowed. “She’s the one that works in that music hall, Campion’s, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” said Rose. “We both do.”

  “I heard that Campion’s was closing down.”

  “Well, you heard wrong,” said Rose indignantly, shaking the hand off and wondering how this woman got her information, locked away here behind thick walls in Holloway.

  The woman appraised Rose. “I like a girl with a bit of spirit. You must be the daughter, the foundling discovered on the steps and adopted by that Thomas Campion, the one with the bad money troubles.”

  Rose tried to disguise her surprise. How did this woman know who she was and about Thomas’s financial difficulties? It made her shiver.

  “Thomas hasn’t got any money troubles. That’s all behind him. Campion’s is thriving again.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” said the woman, her rasping made worse by her undisguised excitement, “now he’s got his hands on the Doomstone. That pretty bauble will fetch a pretty price.”

  “Thomas had nothing to do with the disappearance of the Doomstone,” said Rose and she was almost shouting. “Business is looking up and it will take a turn for the better still when Gandini starts his run at the top of the bill.”

  The woman looked interested, like a bird about to swoop on a delicious worm it had spotted.

  “Gandini?” She said the name as if she was chewing on it and enjoying the taste. “What an unusual name.” Her clawed hand shot out again and she clutched at Rose’s sleeve before Rose had a chance to step away. “Listen, dearie, you can do a dying woman a favour. I’ll make it worth your while. I need you to get a message out for me…”

  The woman tensed. The click of Sister Havering’s shoes could be heard in the corridor. Rose seized the opportunity to pull her arm away. She took a step backwards just as Sister Havering’s name was called and the footsteps receded. The woman beckoned her closer but Rose wasn’t going to be caught again.

  “I’m sorry, I must go,” she stuttered, and so eager was she to get away, she almost ran
towards the doorway.

  “A pity,” hissed the woman after her, all sign of illness gone. “You could have been useful to me, and I might have been useful to you, Rose Campion. More useful than you could ever imagine. I know things: things you’d like to know…” She paused and hissed like a snake: “Little lost foundling. Little Miss Nobody.”

  Rose didn’t wait to hear more; she stumbled into the corridor, just as Sister Havering appeared at the other end. She felt quite shaken up. How could this woman be so well informed?

  “Are you all right, Rose?” Sister Havering asked kindly. “You look flustered. Why don’t you sit down.” She indicated one of two hard wooden chairs and took the other herself, sinking into it like a woman relieved to rest her aching feet.

  “I’m fine,” said Rose, not keen to admit to her encounter with the woman. Julia Devonish had permitted her to accompany Effie as a favour. Rose felt certain it was against the rules for her to be talking to prisoners other than Iris Madley. She didn’t want the prison to have any reason to refuse Effie a future visit. She felt stupid and reckless for allowing her curiosity to overcome her, and she felt oddly stained by her encounter with the woman.

  Sister Havering’s kind face was careworn. “It’s a bad business. Iris Madley has gone downhill so fast. Sometimes I think it’s not just the consumption but despair that’s killing her. Perhaps seeing her daughter will help her rally. She talks about her little Effie all the time when she’s got enough breath.” The Sister sighed. “It’s always the good ones who go, the ones like Iris Madley with soft hearts and plenty of regrets. Not like that duchess in the next room. She’ll pull through. She has the constitution of an ox and a heart hammered out of iron.”

  “Duchess? Is she royalty?” asked Rose, opening her eyes wide.

  Sister Havering gave a short laugh. “She’s criminal royalty. That’s why she’s called the Duchess. Thieved and murdered and maimed all her life on her patch down Bethnal Green way. She ran gangs of pickpockets and is said to have been the brains behind some major thefts in the city and the West End. That one’s so crooked she could hide behind a spiral staircase.”

  Rose tiptoed to the door of Iris’s room and peeped through the crack. Effie had clambered on to the bed, and mother and daughter were lying side by side, gently stroking each other’s faces as if they were beyond the need for words.

  “They all right?” asked Sister Havering. Rose nodded. “You do realise that you and Effie will both have to leave soon? They’ve already had longer than is allowed in the rules.”

  “Yes,” said Rose. She knew that when the moment came to go, it was going to be terrible to try and prise Effie away from her mother. It might be the last time she would ever see her. As if trying to distract Rose from thinking of that cruel moment when she would have to tell Effie that time had run out and they must go, Sister Havering continued telling Rose about the Duchess.

  “The Duchess is a ruthless one, no mistake. It’s rumoured that she killed her own son, the Gentleman Dipper, the king of the priggers, who legend has it had such exquisite manners that he sometimes apologised to his victims before he fleeced them. But he tired of the criminal life and wanted to go straight. Well, the Duchess wasn’t having that. So she killed him and his little daughter too. Cut both their throats, and apparently laughed when she did it. Said he was no son of hers. They say their bodies are weighed down with bricks at the bottom of the Regent’s Canal. It may not be true. Others say it was him who betrayed her and that’s why she’s rotting here. Still others say the rumour was all a ruse and the Gentleman Dipper is out there somewhere lying low until he can pull off the crime of a lifetime, and that the Duchess was in on it all along, and it was just bad luck she got nabbed by the Blues eight months back. She’s a sly one, that Duchess. They say she has friends in high places, or knows things about them that they wouldn’t want anyone on earth to know.”

  Rose saw the Sister glance out the window at the clock on one of the prison towers. She felt a desperate need to try and prolong the conversation.

  “What’s the Duchess’s real name?”

  “Ruth Bray, but she goes under many aliases. Susan Perks. Ruby Bonnar. Beth Honer. Eliza Proc—”

  There was a sudden broken cry from the room. It was unmistakeably Effie’s voice. Rose and Sister Havering rushed to Iris’s bedside. Effie was holding her mother upright as if her very life depended on it. Iris was coughing, her breath coming in great shuddering gasps. It was clearly far more serious than the previous coughing fits. Sister Havering ran out the room, calling for help. The spasm suddenly seemed to pass. Iris was staring straight ahead, a look of quiet intensity in her eyes. She reached blindly for her daughter’s hand and clasped it to her heart.

  “Effie,” she said, her voice rusted with grief. “I love you.”

  “I know, Ma,” whispered Effie. “I love you too.”

  “Never forget that you have been loved Effie. So loved,” gasped Iris, and the light seemed to fade from her eyes as she closed them and sank backwards on to the bed as if she had simply fallen into a sudden deep sleep. Only a telltale trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth told another story. Iris Madley was dead. Effie gave a long wail, the grief rising in a voice that sounded as if it belonged to somebody else, someone immensely old and sad. Rose knelt by the bed and put her arms around Effie, who buried her face in Rose’s shoulder and sobbed uncontrollably. Rose had always thought it was a terrible thing to have no mother, but she could see from Effie’s pain that it was a terrible thing too to have to deal with the grief of losing one.

  It was a sad and shocked party that clambered into a carriage outside Holloway Prison. Thomas had lifted Effie up into the carriage as if she was a floppy rag doll and she lolled against Rose. She stared straight ahead, saying nothing. As the carriage rumbled away, Rose glanced backwards. She hoped that she would never have to see Holloway Prison again as long as she lived. She craned her neck further. Unless she was much mistaken, she was sure that she had just seen Billy Proctor walking into the prison. She frowned. What on earth could have brought him there? Julia Devonish had mentioned that Ruth Bray, or the Duchess as she was known, was expecting a visitor. Could Billy be that visitor? If he was, did it mean he was involved in the criminal underworld? Maybe the Duchess had orchestrated the theft of the Doomstone from Campion’s from her prison cell. She certainly seemed to know a great deal about the place. Rose’s heart gave a skip of excitement, but Effie’s sobs made her banish the thought from her mind, and she directed all her attention towards her poor, broken friend.

  11

  Rose walked down the back corridor at Campion’s towards the male dressing rooms, whistling to herself. She had some costumes to deliver, fresh from the laundry. This evening Effie would be appearing for the first time on the Campion’s stage assisting the Illustrious Gandini, a debut that had been delayed because of her mother’s death. Thomas had repeatedly asked Effie if she was sure that she still wanted to perform with Gandini, particularly as her mother’s body had only been laid to rest in St Olave’s burial ground two days ago. But Effie had been quite determined to go ahead.

  “Me ma would have wanted me to,” she told Rose and Thomas. “I told her I was goin’ to be a magician’s assistant an’ she couldn’t have bin prouder than if I told her I was going to be crowned the queen of England. She always loved the magic acts when we went to the Fortune in Hoxton. And I couldn’t let Mr Gandini down.”

  “Well, just as long as Gandini is understanding of everything you’ve been through, and doesn’t get upset if you get something wrong,” said Rose.

  “I don’t reckon anything will go wrong,” said Effie confidently. “Mr Gandini makes me plan and check everything over and over. He’s a real stickler for that. He says that failing to prepare properly is exactly the same as preparing to fail, an’ it’s not worth the risk.”

  Hearing the word “risk”, Thomas looked anxious. “You’re not going to do the bullet trick tonight?” he asked wi
th a frown.

  “Nah,” said Effie. “We’re still working on that one. No room for any error there. We’ve got to be quite certain we’ve got it right. People have died tryin’ it.”

  “I’m not sure it should ever be performed,” said Thomas. “It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Don’t worry, Thomas,” said Effie. “I’d trust Gandini with me life. He’s a perfect gentleman and I ain’t had nothing but kindness and patience from ’im. He won’t do no trick that he ain’t certain will work.”

  Rose shifted the costumes she had hanging over her shoulder and knocked on the dressing-room door. There was no answer. She pushed the door open and started to hang up the clean costumes on a rail. She could hear a low murmur of voices from the props room next door.

  “You’re being blind. You just won’t see what’s going on right under your nose,” said an impatient voice that Rose didn’t recognise. She couldn’t even be sure if the speaker was male or female. She wondered who it was. The wall muffled and distorted the sound. Was it a woman or a man? She thought it could be Jem but she really wasn’t certain. Maybe it was Lydia, who she thought she had spotted earlier in the bar.

  “Things are not always what they seem. You should know that better than anyone,” replied another voice. She was pretty sure this voice was male, but again, the wall made it hard to be sure. Maybe it was Billy, or Thomas. “Besides, we’re in too deep now to get out. I’ve come up with a plan if things get hot that will get us all out of this nightmare. It involves you.” Rose frowned. She wished she could identify the voice.