Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret

by Lyn Gardner

  “Effie,” said Aurora gently. “Please don’t lie to us. It doesn’t matter how bad the truth is as long as it is the truth.”

  “I am telling the truth!” cried Effie desperately. “I wouldn’t lie…” She trailed off, thinking about Josiah Pinch. “All right, I am a liar. A liar and a thief. But I promise I’m telling the truth now. I swear on my mum’s life.”

  Rose raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said your mother was dead.”

  Effie looked at her despairingly. “She ain’t dead,” she whispered. “She’s locked up in Holloway for stealing a pocket watch. Only she didn’t steal it. I did it. It was my first job. We were behind with the rent again. Josiah Pinch decided it was time I did some prigging meself, not just act as a lookout, and I panicked. Me mum took the blame to save me. Josiah knows and he threatened to tell the magistrates she’d lied under oath if I didn’t steal the cup and ribbon and anything else of Lizzie Gawkin’s I could find. He’d do it too. He ain’t got a heart. If he did peach, me mum would get more time for lying, and I’d go to Holloway too. It would kill me mum if I went in the clink. We were always poor but we were respectable until we fell behind with the rent and Josiah got us in his clutches.”

  “Couldn’t you just have told the landlord what he was doing?” asked Rose.

  “You’re joking, ain’t you? Lord Easingford’s the worst of the lot. He don’t care how he gets his money.”

  The children stared at each other.

  “What did you say he was called?” asked Rose, not sure she could believe her ears.

  “Lord Easingford,” said Effie, looking at their astonished faces.

  “Effie, I want to be sure you are telling us the truth. When you came south over the river, did Josiah send you here?” asked Rose.

  “No, cross me heart, he didn’t,” said Effie. “I came to make a new start. At first I thought he must have followed me here. But I reckon it was just bad luck. He already had business at Campion’s and once he saw me, he realised I could be useful to him.”

  “And that business seems to have something to do with Lizzie Gawkin and Lord Easingford, and we know that Ned has an Easingford link too.” Rose’s mind was whirring. “Do you think that Lizzie could be blackmailing the Easingford family in some way and that Josiah is involved too?” she asked.

  “It’s a possibility,” said Aurora.

  “I think it all comes back to Ned,” said Rose excitedly. “If we could just find out what his connection is with the Easingford family, maybe we could discover why he was murdered. It makes it all the more urgent that we talk to Grace.”

  She looked round to ask Effie something, but Effie had gone. They rushed into the yard. Effie was walking away down Hangman’s Alley, a small solitary figure illuminated in the pale eerie glow of a street lamp.

  “Effie!” called Rose. “Effie! Come back.”

  The small figure didn’t turn but simply continued to glide away from them like a lonely ghost. The girls ran to catch up with her.

  “Where are you going?” asked Rose.

  “I only come back to bring the bicycle. I knew you needed it for your act. I didn’t want you to think I’d stolen it. I can’t stay at Campion’s, not now you all know I’m a liar and thief and I put Josiah Pinch on to Grace and Freddie.”

  Rose frowned. “Of course you’re going to stay at Campion’s, Effie. You didn’t know that by telling him about Ned you’d be putting Grace and Freddie in danger.”

  “It don’t change the fact I’m a liar and a thief,” said Effie in a tiny voice.

  “Oh, Effie, you’re also brave and loyal! Look at the way you put yourself in danger trying to save Freddie!” said Aurora.

  Rose looked at Effie solemnly. “You must stay. We want you to. Campion’s needs you, Effie!” Rose put her arm around Effie’s thin shoulders and steered her back towards the theatre and inside. “And from what I can see, you need Campion’s. It’s obvious that you are just not cut out for a career in lying and thieving.”

  Effie smiled feebly. “I want to do everything I can to solve the mystery of Ned’s death. There was something else Grace told me. She said that Ned told her he took his name off a gravestone. Later he said it was a joke. But I think she thought it was true.”

  Aurora, who was drawing the bolt across the door, suddenly gasped. “Easingford! I knew I’d seen that name somewhere else besides the cup. It’s just come back. Lizzie had a newspaper cutting about Henry Easingford. It was something to do with him and the Queen. So there’s definitely a connection between Lizzie and Lord Henry. Blackmail, most likely. She was always sending and receiving letters. She sent one the day we came here – I caught a glimpse of the address. It was going to Silver Square.”

  Rose turned and ran up the stairs to Thomas’s study, beckoning the others after her, and opened the book that Thomas had shown them. She flicked through the pages and turned to the others. “Look! Lord Henry Easingford. London residence: 22 Silver Square.”

  The children looked at each other. They had lots of pieces of a puzzle, but no idea how they fitted together.

  It was the next day, and Rose and Thomas were rattling along in a coach on their way to Ivanhoe House in Balham. Rose had persuaded Thomas to go along with her plan, even though he didn’t like it one bit. He thought he was the one who needed his head examining for agreeing to it, but Rose could be very persuasive. The lawyer had told Thomas they needed proof that Grace was inside, so Rose was going to try and find her admissions form and pinch it, or, if that proved impossible, get Grace to sign a piece of headed notepaper saying she was being held against her will.

  “Are you sure about this, Rose?” asked Thomas. “We could turn straight round and go back to Campion’s, try to find another way to free Grace.”

  Rose shook her head firmly, her mouth set in a mutinous line. Thomas knew she wouldn’t budge. The plan was for Thomas to pose as Mr Skimblebanks, the successful tea-merchant father of a wayward daughter, Sophia, who he wanted to tame. He would take her to the asylum and leave her there. Then, after twenty-four hours, Thomas would return, saying he had changed his mind and wished to have his daughter returned to him immediately. He would offer a handsome fee in return for the asylum’s cooperation.

  That gave Rose twenty-four hours to get some proof to take to a magistrate in order to secure Grace’s release. Thomas wasn’t at all happy about any of it, but at least he knew they both had the acting skills to carry it off. The girl sitting opposite him, wearing one of Campion’s finest costumes, looked every inch the little lady.

  Soon the narrow, muddy streets of Southwark gave way to broader avenues and hedges. There were snowdrops to be seen, and the odd goat. Hens pecked around the road.

  “Thomas,” said Rose quietly, “what would happen if Campion’s went under?”

  “Don’t you worry, Rosie, you and Aurora might just save the day with your bicycle act. But even if Campion’s does fail, I’ll look out for you. I might not be able to support every stray we’ve picked up at Campion’s over the years, but I’d never abandon you.”

  “I’m not sure I could cope with being abandoned twice,” said Rose in a little voice. Thomas glanced at her wan face. He knew that, secure though she was at Campion’s, Rose found the fact she had been abandoned by her mother hard to accept.

  “That’s never going to happen, Rosie.” Thomas turned quite pink. “I know I’m not your father, but I love you as if you were my own.”

  Rose took his hand and squeezed it tightly. She knew he was thinking of his own lost children, two little twin babes dead of the measles before their first birthday. Then she suddenly remembered something.

  “Thomas?” she said tentatively, fearing she might be stepping into difficult territory. “I don’t want to pry, but why was Ned asking you about your babies that day he and Grace came to tea?”

  If she had suddenly held a knife to Thomas’s neck, he couldn’t have seemed more startled. A great struggle appeared to be taking place inside him.<
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  “Not my babies, Rose,” he said quietly. “The babies.” He paused. “You and the other little one.”

  “What do you mean?” breathed Rose.

  Thomas took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’ve never told you this before. You weren’t the only child left on Campion’s step that morning. There were two of you, both girls, both newborns.”

  “Two of us?” whispered Rose so quietly she could barely be heard. “I had a sister, a twin?”

  Thomas shook his head. “I can’t say you were twins, or even sisters. When I found you on the doorstep, it felt for a moment as if my own dear girls had come back to me. You were each wrapped in one half of the same linen sheet, and you looked alike just as all tiny babies do, with their blue eyes and downy hair. But as the days passed you looked far less alike to me and your colouring was very different, which made me think that maybe you weren’t related at all.”

  “What happened to the other baby?”

  Thomas looked upset. “Rosie, this isn’t the time or the place to discuss it. Let’s turn the carriage round and go home where we can talk properly. We’ll come back to Ivanhoe House another day.”

  “No,” said Rose, thrusting out her chin so she looked like a prize fighter. “We can’t leave Grace, and I want to know. Now.”

  Thomas sighed and looked very sad. “All right then. It was about three weeks after I found you both at Campion’s, and the pair of you were fast asleep, wrapped up in the baskets I’d bought for you both, out in the yard. O’Leary was doing a bit of scenery painting out there and keeping an eye on you. I was up in my study. He went inside to get some more paint, just as I happened to stand up and look down into the yard. There was a woman, thin and dark-haired, staring down into the baskets. I banged on the window, she looked up and I caught a glimpse of her face, and then she grabbed both baskets and rushed out of the yard. I ran after her. She was quick on her feet but burdened by the baskets. I had almost caught her when she suddenly dropped one of the baskets. It was the one with you in it.

  “I bent to pick you up, and when I looked up she had disappeared down one of the narrow streets leading down to the river. Of course, I went after her. But there was no trace, so I reported what had happened to the police. But they had better things to investigate than another missing child.”

  “But she might have been my mother!” cried Rose. “It might have been my mother coming back for her two daughters. And I got left behind.”

  Thomas’s face was flushed. “I told you, I don’t think you and the other babe were sisters. And, Rose, don’t you think that if she really was your mother, she would have knocked on the door and explained that she wanted you back? She’d have gone to the police if necessary, surely.”

  Rose knew that what Thomas was saying made sense but she still felt devastated. Maybe her mother had come back for her and Thomas had thwarted her. Maybe she hadn’t just lost a mother but a sister too.

  Tears were falling down her face. Thomas leaned forward and clasped her hands but Rose snatched them away. “Maybe she was my mother and now I’ll never know her. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  “I know I should have done,” said Thomas sadly. “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret. There just never seemed the right moment to tell you. And I was so full of guilt and regret. I hadn’t been able to protect my own children and I lost them, and then I had been given a second chance, a gift of two babes and I hadn’t been able to protect them either, not properly. Whenever I think of that time I’m eaten up with loss and grief. So I tried not to think about it and I justified it to myself by saying what good would it do you knowing what happened. It would only make you unhappy.”

  “Well, it has,” said Rose furiously, and then the words were out of her mouth and she couldn’t take them back: “You had no right, you’re not my real father.”

  “Oh, Rose, Rose,” said Thomas ruefully. “I know that. You’ve brought me more—”

  But Rose, consumed by her own misery, turned her face against him and before he could finish his sentence, the cab pulled into a wide drive and came to a standstill.

  “We’re ’ere, guv,” said the coachman. Rose and Thomas stared out of the window at the Georgian house in front of them. It was a grey, ivy-clad building with wide steps leading up to the door. It would have been rather pleasant if it were not for the thick iron bars on all the windows.

  Rose lay awake in the narrow bed watching the moonlight spill through the bars of the window. She could see bodies hunched under blankets in other beds. She was regretting her final moments with Thomas before the door of Ivanhoe House had clanged behind him. He had been so desperate for her forgiveness, but she had turned away from him. When he had tried to kiss her goodbye she had pulled away.

  “Goodbye, Mr Skimblebanks,” said Dr Fogg, standing up behind his desk in the study and moving round to Thomas and pressing his hand. He started to guide Thomas towards the door. Seizing her chance, Rose leaned forward and grabbed a sheet of headed notepaper. Dr Fogg was too busy trying to ease Thomas out of the study door to notice as Rose folded it swiftly and stuffed it up her knickerbockers. “I can assure you that you are leaving Sophia in the safest of hands. I am certain that you will notice a pleasing difference in her behaviour when you next see her.” He glanced back at Rose standing behind them, her face all innocence, and determined to break this rich, spoiled, wayward girl.

  “I shall come and visit my daughter often,” said Thomas. They had reached the hall with its tiled black-and-white chequered floor. Two nurses appeared and flanked Rose, a little too close for comfort.

  Dr Fogg’s meaty lips stretched themselves into an oily smile.

  “We do not recommend any contact for the first three months. We find that patients settle better without too much of a reminder of their old way of life.”

  Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Sophia is my daughter and I am paying for her stay here. Paying generously, I might add. I shall come and see her whenever I so desire.”

  “As you wish, sir,” said Dr Fogg tightly.

  At the door, Thomas turned to Rose. “It won’t be for long, Sophia, I promise. I shall come by tomorrow before noon and check that all is well and you have settled.”

  Rose said nothing. She was no longer sure if she was acting or simply projecting her real feelings. Thomas stepped out into sunshine and she saw his shadow through the glass panels in the door, walking away from her.

  Dr Fogg turned to the two nurses. They grabbed Rose by the arms.

  “You will have to go easy on this one,” he said curtly, “until her father loses interest in her.” He put his face close to Rose and said silkily, “They do lose interest, you know, Sophia. We have had people here for years, girls just like you whose fathers or husbands find them too much to handle. They give them over to us and after a while it just seems to slip their minds that they left them here. It’s so much more convenient for everyone that way.”

  Now, lying in the moonlight as she waited for the house to fall silent so that she could look for Grace, Rose regretted that she hadn’t given Thomas a little sign that she had forgiven him and shown him how much she loved him. She sat up in bed and listened. The moans and coughs had finally died away. Even the nurse at the end of the ward was snoring, her cap slipped across her eyes. She must find Grace. There had been no sign of her all day. But at supper she’d been given a clue when she’d overheard a conversation between two of the maids.

  “I’ve got to climb those bloomin’ stairs all the way to the third floor with a tray again,” grumbled one. “That new one that was brought in screaming and kicking yesterday ain’t settling. Me poor legs will suffer for it. We need ’elp. They’ve ’ad that notice for a new maid on the back door for ages and nobody has answered it. Nobody wants to work in a mad ’ouse. I’m rushed off me feet.”

  Rose hardly felt the cold linoleum as she stealthily crossed the room. Downstairs, beyond the imposing hall with its black-and-white tiles, Ivanhoe House
was plush and carpeted, but away from any of the rooms that visitors might see, all expense had been spared.

  Rose crept like a cat across the floor. She turned the handle of the ward door and it opened. She was not surprised. Everyone was so docile here there was no need to lock them in at night. She suspected most were being given laudanum. She checked the corridor and then padded upstairs. She heard a shriek and froze, before realising that it was only a fox outside. She tried a door, but the bed in the room was empty. She heard a noise at the end of the corridor and stayed in the empty room.

  Two nurses walked by, talking. “That new one, Grace, is another of Easingford’s relatives, just like old Sarah who’s been here forever.”

  Rose suppressed a gasp. Sarah? Wasn’t that the name of the younger Dorset sister?

  Could it be that Sarah Easingford, Henry’s wife, was an inmate too?

  Rose waited until the voices faded. Then she tiptoed along the corridor and opened the door at the end. A shaft of moonlight fell on the iron bedstead and the figure strapped to the bed with leather belts. Grace turned her head and looked at Rose, her eyes dark with fear.

  “Rose,” she whispered. “Have they got you too? Oh, Rose, Rose. We are going to rot in here and die, and nobody will ever know.” Her eyes darkened further. “Freddie?”

  “He’s safe and we’re not going to rot and die,” said Rose firmly. “I’m here to get you out. Thomas is coming back for me tomorrow, and we’ll get you released as quickly as we can. I promise you, Grace.”

  She produced the headed notepaper and a pencil from her knickerbockers, undid the straps and made Grace sign the short note she’d written earlier.

  “Grace, did Ned ever mention somebody called Lord Easingford?” she said as she retied the straps.

  Grace looked puzzled, but then she said, “No, but there was a funny thing happened in Oxford one night after the show. This real posh type seemed to think he knew Ned. Called him Easingford – Ed Easingford. He got quite nasty when Ned said he was mistaken. Shouted something about Ned being barmy and that it ran in the family. Afterwards Ned said the man must have mistaken him for someone else. But I could see he was rattled.”