by Lucy Strange
For a moment I imagined striking him with a hot iron, right in the middle of his bushy moustache. He kept talking to Nanny Jane as he clambered into his motor car: ‘Be sure to tell Mr Abbott, won’t you? Extraordinary new treatments! Cutting edge, cutting edge . . .’
At five minutes to three o’clock I was ready. I sat beside the study window, watching for Doctor Hardy’s motor car. Nanny Jane had scrubbed my face and put me in my best dress. It was pale blue with a big lace collar. It was too tight under my arms. An edge of ribbon scratched at the back of my neck.
By seven minutes past three I was becoming impatient.
He’s not coming, whispered a nasty voice somewhere at the back of my mind. He’s not coming. You’ll never see your little sister again . . .
Just when I was about to start ripping off the horrible scratchy dress, I heard the sound of a motor car. He was here. The study windows shook a little in their frames as the noisy engine vibrated outside the house.
‘Goodbye, Nanny Jane,’ I called, running out of the front door and leaving it swinging open behind me. Nanny Jane appeared in the doorway and waved as I climbed into the car. Suddenly I wished she was coming with me. I had no desire to be alone with the Hardys . . . What if they turned on me? What if they drugged me with yellow pills? What if they had invited Doctor Chilvers to tea to interrogate and examine me? Then I thought of the baby, clasped in Mrs Hardy’s cold, scaly arms, and I remembered Robert’s words – ‘You’re a big sister now . . .’
I had to be brave. For Piglet.
Doctor Hardy didn’t say anything until we reached the junction in Little Birdham.
‘Just a quick errand I need to do before we go home,’ he said. ‘It won’t take long,’ and he smiled horribly as he turned right instead of left. The motor car roared all the way up the hill, past the church and a row of houses, through a long tunnel of trees to a pair of cast-iron gates. The sign above the gates said just one word: HELLDON.
I felt a low, cold twist of fear. ‘Why are we . . . ?’ I couldn’t finish my sentence.
‘I just need to pick up some papers from a colleague,’ he said simply. ‘And I thought I’d let you get a glimpse of the old place. Your nanny says you’re in a dreadful state about it all. It’s not the least bit scary, you know!’
I stared ahead. I couldn’t see a building at all, just trees and a winding driveway, like the skin of a dead, grey snake.
‘Interesting fact for you, Henrietta,’ Doctor Hardy said, in the manner of a know-it-all tour guide. ‘The old asylums were built like this on purpose – with a curving driveway so you can’t see the building from the main road. That’s where we get the saying “going round the bend”, because when you’re carted off to the loony bin, you’re driven round the bend!’
The loony bin?
‘Let’s go round the bend, shall we?’
I opened my mouth to protest, but I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t breathe.
We bumped along the driveway, twisting first one way, then the other, following its unnatural, serpentine path. I did not want to see the asylum at all. I wanted to go home. Suddenly I was terrified that this was some sort of trap – Doctor Hardy had never intended to take me to see Piglet; he had tricked me into getting into his car so he could bring me to Helldon and deliver me into the hands of Doctor Chilvers . . .
‘Here we are!’ Doctor Hardy exclaimed.
And there it was. Helldon. It was a ghastly grey tomb of a building – square and ugly, four storeys high and dotted with tiny barred windows. I didn’t look at them closely – I didn’t want to see any faces looking back at me. I half expected to see Mama’s face, somehow imprisoned behind one of those windows already, or the girl I had seen in the mirror – a thinner, older, madder version of me, silenced behind a dirty pane of glass . . .
Doctor Hardy stopped the car. ‘See? Not spooky at all. Home sweet home, eh?’ He climbed out of the motor car and called back to me, ‘Just sit tight for a moment, please, Henrietta. I shan’t be long.’ And he entered the dark doorway of the building.
I panicked. What if Doctor Hardy has gone to fetch Chilvers to lock me up? Or was I just being hysterical? Perhaps this really was just an errand and he hadn’t meant to frighten me at all . . .
There was a flower bed in front of the building, and a gardener was sitting beside it, pulling up weeds. I noticed that his right leg ended in a round stump at the knee, his trouser leg tied into a bunch with twine. A crutch lay on the grass beside him. He must have been injured in the war, I thought, just like Mr Berry. The gardener nodded at me and touched his cap.
‘Don’t want to hang around here too long, Miss,’ he called out cheerfully. ‘They might lock you up by mistake!’
I smiled weakly.
What should I do? Should I jump out of the car and run away? It was too late. Doctor Hardy was already heading back to the car, a sheaf of papers in his hand. I held my breath as he climbed in and turned the motor car around – slowly, painfully slowly – and I didn’t breathe properly again until we were out of the driveway and on our way back to Little Birdham.
The Hardys’ house was on the other side of the village, in a cramped cul-de-sac of new houses just off the village green. Their parlour was custard-coloured and stiflingly hot. It reeked of lily of the valley. Mrs Hardy had dressed Piglet in a frothy dress, all netting and bows – completely different from the simple clothes Nanny Jane usually dressed her in. The baby and Mrs Hardy were posed on the sofa together when we arrived, like a Victorian family photograph. I half expected Doctor Hardy to go and stand with them to complete the scene, one hand placed authoritatively on his wife’s shoulder, but he disappeared into another room instead.
Piglet’s face was beetroot red. She was either too hot or she had just had one of her tantrums. She held her little fat arms out to me as soon as I came in.
‘May I hold her, please, Mrs Hardy?’ I said, angry that I had to ask.
‘Of course,’ she said, with a thin smile, and passed her to me. ‘It’s nearly time for her afternoon nap, though.’ Another wave of anger rippled through me. Mrs Hardy was enjoying this. This was a game to her. Well, I could play games too . . .
‘She feels awfully hot,’ I said, putting one hand on the baby’s cheek, and I peeled off a woollen cardigan that was buttoned tightly over the frothy dress. ‘I was reading in the newspaper about an old woman who accidentally killed her granddaughter by dressing her too warmly for this dreadful heat we’ve been having.’
I had read no such thing, but I wanted to hurt Mrs Hardy as much as she had hurt me. And I wanted her to know that I had heard all the sly things she had said to Nanny Jane when they took Piglet away.
‘I’m sure she’s quite well,’ Mrs Hardy replied with a voice as cool as porcelain, but I thought I saw a flicker of concern on her face.
‘Perhaps she has influenza,’ I went on. ‘There’s an awful epidemic of influenza at the moment.’ I had heard something about the high number of deaths from influenza in the past year, and I thought it could be useful ammunition. The Hardys would hardly want a sick baby in their home.
‘She doesn’t have influenza,’ Doctor Hardy said decisively, strolling back into the room and sitting on the sofa next to me.
‘Roberta is perfectly well,’ he went on. ‘And she has a new favourite game – don’t you, Roberta?’ He whipped Piglet out of my arms and balanced her on his knee.
‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,’ he bellowed, ‘Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!’ And he bumped Piglet down on to the floor.
Don’t laugh, Piglet, don’t you dare laugh . . .
I needn’t have worried. Piglet had fixed Doctor Hardy with one of her most stern and unforgiving looks.
‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,’ – he was dancing her about like a reluctant puppet – ‘couldn’t put Humpty together again!’ And he landed her back triumphantly on his knee. ‘That was fun, wasn’t it, Roberta?’ he said in a silly high-pitched voice. Mrs H
ardy was looking on proudly.
Piglet glared at him. Her face was perfectly stony.
I love you, little Piglet, I said silently, I love you so much.
I tried everything. I said Piglet kept the whole house awake night after night when she was teething. ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘She looks as if she has another tooth coming!’
I invented a fictitious aunt – ‘Aunt Susan’, my father’s sister – who was coming to stay with us, to help take care of Mama so that the baby could come home. ‘I look forward to meeting her,’ Doctor Hardy growled sarcastically.
Short of tucking Piglet under my arm like a rugger ball and running off with her, there was nothing else I could have done. In the end, quite desperately, I decided to try honesty. ‘I miss her terribly,’ I said quietly. ‘And so does Nanny Jane. She is perfectly safe at home, I guarantee it.’
‘I don’t think you can guarantee that, Henrietta,’ Doctor Hardy said, mocking my sincere tone. ‘While your mother is so ill, the baby needs to remain with us.’
That was that, then. I had failed.
But only for today, I told myself as Doctor Hardy drove me home. I wasn’t done yet.
My body ached with tiredness that night but my thoughts kept lurching and spinning in the darkness and wouldn’t let me sleep. I struck a match and lit the candle beside my bed. I replaced the glass over the candle holder. I blew the match out and watched carefully until its glow had faded and died before putting it in the saucer.
The light of the candle flickered, and grotesque figures seemed to leap about in the shadowy patterns of the wallpaper. I lay down again, my mind torturing me with images of Mama lost in the dark corridors of Helldon. I was searching for her – I could hear her footsteps – but she kept disappearing around corners. When at last I found her, she was sitting alone in a white room. She had become Humpty Dumpty. Her skull was a fragile, shattered eggshell. Pieces of eggshell lay all over the floor and I was frantically trying to pick them all up for her . . . She kept telling me to leave the pieces and get out – the building was on fire, but I didn’t listen until it was too late. I felt the heat on my skin, the smoke burning my lungs. I heard Mama’s screams – or were they my own? I forced myself to wake up.
I looked at the clock that stood on my mantelpiece. Midnight.
The witching hour.
I stood at my bedroom window and looked out at the dark shape of Nightingale Wood, hoping to see the familiar plume of woodsmoke rising from the trees; but there was no flicker of Moth’s fire in the forest. I wondered where she could be.
And then I saw her.
She was in our garden.
It took me a minute to get outside. I could just see Moth standing beside the white rose bush, a dark shape against the shadowy forest beyond.
‘Smell divine, don’t they?’ she said, gently pulling a rose towards her. The petals were loosely folded against the night.
‘Like honey and oranges,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. Then: ‘I saw the candle burning in your window, Henrietta. I came to see if you were all right.’
‘I . . . couldn’t sleep.’ We stood together for a moment and then I said, ‘Moth, they’re sending Mama away. They’re sending her to Helldon.’
Moth looked straight into my eyes. In that moment I saw all the way through her, through her crooked smiles and strange songs, right into her heart. I saw years of pain. She looked as if she was about to say something, but she just shook her head, and squeezed my hand in hers – warm and strong. A key swung from her fingers on a length of white ribbon. A key just like mine . . .
I thought about everything that had happened at Hope House in those past weeks – the books and ships moving around in the attic room, Mama’s unlocked door. Then I thought of the photograph Moth had shown me, and the things Mr Pickersgill had told me about the Young family . . . I wasn’t planning on saying anything out loud, but all these thoughts suddenly collided in my head and, before I could stop it, the question had flown out of my mouth:
‘You’re Mrs Young, aren’t you?’
She looked at me for a moment, then she turned away and walked towards the mossy bench beside the pond. I followed and sat beside her.
‘Who?’ she said. I could tell she was bluffing.
‘Mrs Young,’ I repeated. ‘You used to live here at Hope House.’ I was reeling with the realization – and with relief: it wasn’t a ghost, and it wasn’t me – sleepwalking or going mad . . .
‘Mrs Young? I haven’t heard that name for years,’ she said.
‘But you are, aren’t you?’
She gazed up into the night sky. ‘I was once, but not any more, Henrietta. I am Moth now. You said so yourself when you saw the writing on the photograph. I’m just Moth.’
‘I know you can help Mama,’ I said. ‘You know how to help her to get better, Moth.’
‘All I know is that Doctor Hardy is wrong,’ she said. ‘With his pills, and his locked doors and his “rest cure” . . . He has no understanding of the human mind, or the human heart for that matter. I saw your mother one evening, just standing there at the window – so lonely and lost . . . I knew that feeling. I used my old keys and I went to her. I sat with her and held her hand and talked to her, so she knew she wasn’t alone.’
Then I thought about the photograph again. ‘You used to be a nurse, didn’t you, Moth? If you can help Mama to get better soon, they won’t lock her up . . .’
Moth shook her head. ‘But I’m not a nurse any more, Henrietta.’
‘You’ve helped me,’ I said. ‘The nightingale, and poetry . . .’
She smiled her crooked smile again. ‘Poetry,’ she said. ‘That’s about all I have left now. Just look at me. No poet ever wrote an ode to a moth . . .’
‘They should have done,’ I said. ‘Moths are just as beautiful as butterflies.’
‘No, they are not,’ Moth said firmly. ‘Butterflies fill the world with colour and light. The moth does not bring light – it is always in search of it. A moth is a cursed creature. I should know.’ After a little while she said, ‘Keats did write about a moth, as a matter of fact – a “death-moth” . . . Ode on Melancholy – have a look in the book I gave you.’
Moth had given me the book of Keats, and I knew now that she had given me the secret key too, so that I could see Mama against Doctor Hardy’s orders.
‘Thank you for the book,’ I whispered, ‘and the key.’ I gripped it in my fingers like a talisman.
She nodded.
Then I said, ‘I’m frightened, Moth.’
‘Frightened?’
‘Father is far away, Mama is lost, Piglet has been taken . . . It feels as if everything has been cut loose and has drifted. Everything has gone.’
‘No,’ Moth said, ‘you mustn’t say that.’ And she thought for a moment, looking up into the night sky. ‘It is just a new moon, Henrietta.’
I didn’t understand.
‘Even when the moon is just a thin white crescent, the rest of the moon is still there, in shadow. It has not gone anywhere – we just can’t see it. Look for the part of the moon that is hidden in shadow, Henrietta. Trust that it is there even when it can’t be seen.’ Her reflection shivered like quicksilver on the surface of the pond. ‘It must be late,’ she said. ‘You should get back to bed now.’
‘I can’t . . . I’m afraid to sleep,’ I said, thinking of the nightmare that had left me sweating with terror.
Moth drew a deep breath of night air into her lungs. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’d best come with me, then.’
I watched Moth rebuild her fire and feed it with logs. It grew quickly and it wasn’t until I felt its warmth that I realized how cold I had been. Moth gave me a hot drink that tasted of herbs, and then made me a nest inside the caravan – a great heap of soft, clean blankets to curl up in.
A little book lay on the table. I picked it up. It was a serviceman’s bible from the war – the bible with the old picture inside. The photograph of Moth and the litt
le boy.
‘If you’re Mrs Young,’ I said carefully, ‘then A. Young – Alfred – must be your son. The little boy who used to sleep in the attic room – with all his books and model ships . . . The boy in the picture.’
Moth stared at me and took the bible from my hands. She looked hurt, almost angry.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean . . . I saw his name in a book in the attic. I didn’t mean to pry.’
She sat down, holding the tiny bible between her hands.
‘Yes,’ she said, very quietly, ‘Alfred was my son.’
‘Where is he now?’ I asked.
‘Gone,’ she said. ‘The Battle of Jutland, 1916. Alfred joined the navy as soon as he was old enough to fight, but he never came home. The ship he was serving on was sunk and he drowned. He was still a boy really. Just a boy . . .’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, and I remembered what she had said to me about Robert – a shorter life burns briefly but brightly. A bright star. ‘Did you go up to the attic room?’ I asked. ‘Did you tidy Alfred’s things?’
Moth nodded. ‘I needed to feel close to him again,’ she said. ‘You talking about your brother brought it all back. I never got to say goodbye, you see. I couldn’t have a proper funeral. All those poor boys lost at sea and in the mud of no-man’s-land . . .’ The fire crackled outside the caravan. Moth squeezed my hand gently as she whispered, ‘All our lost boys . . .’
Mr Pickersgill was busy, his smartly dressed secretary explained.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘It’s very important. Tell him it’s about Mrs Young.’ I had run all the way into the village straight after breakfast just to speak to him. I had to tell him about Moth. Mr Pickersgill had known the Young family, and he must have known that Alfred had died in the war, but I was sure he didn’t know that Mrs Young was right there, living in an abandoned caravan in Nightingale Wood. My thoughts were excited and jumbled. I knew that Moth was somehow the key to everything at Hope House.
