The Secret of Nightingale Wood

by Lucy Strange

  ‘Mummy’s not here, Henrietta,’ Doctor Hardy said. Soothing, oozing.

  I had never in my whole life wanted to strike anyone as much as I wanted to strike Doctor Hardy in that moment. My stomach was tight. My fists were tight. I felt Nanny Jane’s hand on my shoulder and I nearly bit it.

  ‘Mama’s been taken straight to the special hospital,’ Nanny Jane said. ‘They left just before you got home.’

  I could barely breathe. ‘A trick!’ I panted. ‘You said you’d see me back at the house, Doctor Hardy – you made me think . . .’ I glared at him. ‘It was a trick! You’ve sent her away – to Helldon.’

  ‘Now, then, young lady – you did know—’

  ‘But I didn’t say goodbye – you didn’t let me say goodbye—’

  ‘We thought it would be easier,’ Nanny Jane said. Her voice was quiet, pleading.

  ‘Easier?’ I gasped, and my breath shuddered through me.

  Doctor Hardy had turned back to his paperwork. I could read his mind – No point paying attention to a child in hysterics. Best to ignore her . . .

  ‘We thought it was for the best,’ Nanny Jane said. I could hear the doubt in her voice. I knew she was close to tears.

  Doctor Hardy stood up. His chair scraped on the floor and he rustled some papers. ‘There is a form here for Mr Abbott,’ he said to Nanny Jane, booming quite deliberately, as if to dismiss my childish nonsense with his important business.

  ‘I want to see Mama, Doctor Hardy,’ I said, trying to control the tone of my voice. ‘I want you to bring her home, please.’ I looked straight into his eyes.

  ‘Too late, I’m afraid – it’s all official now.’ He waved the form in front of my face and stabbed at the signature and date with a purple finger. ‘Look!’

  I stared at the piece of paper and tried to snatch it from his hand, but he passed it straight to Nanny Jane. ‘Mr Abbott needs to sign too,’ he said. ‘Could you pop this in the post to him, please, Miss Button?’ Then he turned back to me and bent his face towards mine. ‘This isn’t the Dark Ages, you silly girl – no one is going to lock Mummy up in Bedlam and throw away the key. She is quite safe in Helldon. Her doctors are highly skilled in treating such cases.’ And as he stood up straight again, his eyes shone. ‘Such extraordinary things they can do these days! Doctor Chilvers is delighted to have a female subject at last. He’s terribly grateful to me. Female neurosis is a different kettle of fish from shell shock, obviously – so it opens up a whole new area of surgical research. He’s really quite optimistic about her chances . . .’ He squeezed past Nanny Jane with a gentlemanly bow and a flourish of his arms.

  He seemed different, somehow – cheerful, excited. Mad Mrs Abbott was finally locked up in Helldon. The baby had been rescued from the dangers of Hope House. All was as it should be and he was the hero of the hour! I hated him. He had taken the fragments of my family, torn them into even smaller shreds, and scattered them in the wind.

  He set off towards the stairs – ‘A cup of tea, I think!’ and then called back conversationally to Nanny Jane, ‘I’ve heard that Chilvers may well be nominated for an award – if his current experiments are successful. How wonderful for me to be a small part of that! How wonderful for all of you too!’

  How wonderful, Doctor Hardy.

  I was numb.

  I could feel how sorry Nanny Jane was, but I was too upset to even look at her.

  I walked straight to my bedroom and stood at the window, looking towards Nightingale Wood. It was only then that I noticed the impossibly low, dark sky, and saw the tiny glistening drops clinging to the dusty window.

  It was starting to rain.

  It pattered evenly against the window. Steady, quiet rain. Then, without warning, there was a surge of sound, like ripping silk, and the rain poured down in a sudden, violent torrent. I tried to remember the last time it had rained – it must have been weeks ago . . . Time had been passing so strangely, I had lost track of what day it was. I thought of the date on the medical form Doctor Hardy had waved in front of my face. The pattern of numbers was familiar. Could that be right? The cogs in my head slowly turned around . . . and then the truth clunked into place. It was my birthday. How had I forgotten that today was my birthday? And everyone else had forgotten too – Nanny Jane, and Father. I had spent my birthday being held prisoner in a motor car on a clifftop, watching helplessly as Mama was taken away and locked up in an asylum . . .

  Then another thought occurred to me: if it was my birthday, then it was almost exactly a year since Robert’s death. I felt a cold wave of nausea. It struck me for the first time that I was catching Robert up – I had caught him up by a year already and it wouldn’t be long before I overtook him . . . How strange, I thought, how horribly wrong, to become older than my older brother . . .

  Dark clouds filled the sky now and the garden was nothing but a wet, black blur. But someone was there – a figure, the silhouette of a woman creeping through the dripping trees towards the house – Mama? Had she somehow escaped from Helldon and found her way home? I pulled the latch and forced the window up. I leant out into the storm and called, ‘Mama! MAMA!’ But she couldn’t hear me over the rain. It was pelting down, drenching me. I would go to her. I turned back into the dark room. I crept on to the landing – it was vital that no one heard me . . . A floorboard creaked loudly, and then I was aware of something right in front of me in the gloom – I screamed and a monstrous face bellowed in reply. I bashed back against the door frame as the enormous creature lurched towards me.

  ‘Good God, child! WHAT are you playing at?’

  My heart was pounding so hard I felt sick. Doctor Hardy boomed again: ‘What are you doing, Henrietta?’ He gaped at me – my hair, my face and shoulders were dripping with rain. Had he heard me shouting? Did he think I had gone mad?

  ‘Outside,’ I gasped, ‘to see Mama—’

  ‘Mama? You weren’t thinking of walking all the way to Helldon in this weather, were you? Your mother is safely locked up, Henrietta.’

  ‘No – she’s in the garden, she’s—’ And then I realized the mistake I had made. It wasn’t Mama in the garden at all. I pushed my wet hands down into the pocket of my old pinafore, and felt something small and square and heavy – the book of Keats. ‘Moth,’ I whispered. ‘It’s Moth.’

  ‘What? Moth? Miss Button, can you get any sense out of the child?’

  Nanny Jane’s face was a mask of fear.

  ‘Henry . . .’ There was a crack in her voice – she was close to tears. ‘Not this witch-in-the-woods thing again, please. No more fairy stories . . .’ She was crying now and so was I.

  ‘She’s real,’ I said, gripping the little book tightly in my pocket. ‘Moth’s real – she’s Mrs Young.’

  Doctor Hardy’s purple face loomed even closer to me. I thought I was going to vomit with fear. When he spoke again, though, his voice was cold, scientific. ‘Mrs Young who lived here in Hope House, Henrietta? She is dead. She has been dead for three years.’ The latter sentence was addressed to Nanny Jane, not to me. ‘I was her doctor, Miss Button. I witnessed the coroner signing her death certificate at the inquest.’

  ‘No, she can’t be dead. She gave me this.’ I showed him the book.

  He seized my wrist. For a moment I thought he was going to drag me down the stairs to Helldon too – my arms were still bruised from where I had been held on the clifftop. I wanted to squirm but I forced myself to stay stiff and still.

  Doctor Hardy continued to hold my wrist as he looked at his watch and counted under his breath. ‘Fascinating, fascinating,’ he muttered. ‘Rapid pulse, delirium, hallucinations, somnambulism . . . I believe my initial diagnosis was correct: we are indeed looking at a case of hereditary lunacy. Most exciting! I shall speak to Doctor Chilvers about you, young lady, and we will make the necessary arrangements. But for now you need to get straight back to bed. And no more wandering around . . .’

  He dropped my wrist, got a bottle of Soothing Syrup out of his doctor’s ba
g and measured out a large spoonful of the foul black liquid. I shook my head. No.

  ‘Please, Henry,’ Nanny Jane begged.

  I stared at her.

  ‘Please.’

  I opened my mouth for the spoon.

  Nanny Jane moved me gently into my bedroom. As soon as the door closed behind me, I ran to the washbasin and spat out the vile medicine. It swirled blackly against the white porcelain like a mouthful of blood. Then I heard a noise and spun around – the key was turning in the lock – they were locking me in!

  ‘NO!’ I slammed at the door with the flat of my hand and, outside, the rain slammed with me.

  Doctor Hardy was talking, but not to me – to Nanny Jane.

  ‘Absolutely not, Miss Button,’ he said loudly. ‘It would be foolhardy to allow Mrs Abbott to return home before her treatment has even begun. It is time to allow Doctor Chilvers to get to work. His methods really are at the cutting edge of psychiatric treatment—’

  That phrase again – cutting edge. Scalpels, surgery . . .

  Nanny Jane was protesting, still in tears: ‘If we can just wait a few more days before starting treatment, Doctor. Mr Abbott says—’

  I wanted to cheer. Nanny Jane was fighting for Mama. For a moment, even though she had just imprisoned me in my bedroom, I allowed myself to love her a little again.

  But Doctor Hardy was adamant. ‘No. We have waited long enough. It has been against all my instincts and principles as a doctor to delay her treatment for as long as this, keeping her here amidst all this – chaos . . . I am talking about her life, Miss Button! Her life!’ And his heavy footsteps descended the stairs.

  Lightning flashed and my room lit up, blue and white, then it was dark again, leaving only the blurred red echo of light on my eyelids. I lay perfectly still in my bed, counting the hours by the clock on the mantelpiece. Mama and I were both prisoners now. I felt as if something inside me had snapped. The ticking of the clock was the only thing that kept my heart beating.

  Where was Robert’s voice when I needed it most? Where was the shimmer of gold light? I clutched my book of fairy tales to my chest – as if stories could help, as if they held the answer somehow.

  What could I do? The storm tore through the trees outside and thunder rolled around the sky like a colossal boulder. I thought of waves breaking fiercely on the shore, boats tossed on to sharp black rocks . . . I thought of the lighthouse on the coast, and the lamp lit by Grace Maskew in Moonfleet. And then I thought of Moth seeing the light in my window on the night I had found her in the garden . . . Yes, a signal. I would signal for help.

  It took three attempts to light a candle – my hands were shaking. Finally the flame caught and I had a perverse instinct to blow it out again almost immediately, like a candle on a cake – Make a wish. Happy birthday to me – but I didn’t. I placed the glass over the candle, and put the candle holder on the windowsill. And then I waited, and waited . . .

  I must have fallen asleep. I dreamt the storm was inside Hope House: the walls shook with thunder, jagged lightning stabbed through the darkness and set fire to the curtains. And then I was back in London, standing on the street outside our house, watching violent flames pressing at the attic window. The window burst and shattered, someone screamed, black smoke belched out into the night and I heard the fire roar with satisfaction . . .

  There were footsteps then, a key turning in a lock; a warm, strong hand taking mine. And then I was awake and we were running, running away from Hope House and my dream of the fire, and the London house, and Mama and Father, and Robert. Poor Robert. The storm was all around me as we ran, and it was inside me, too. The thunder vibrated in my chest and I felt the heaving of my brittle ribs, wrapped like frail fingers around my frantic heart. But I was still running somehow, the strong hand was pulling me on, through wet grass now, wet leaves on my face, the smell of wet earth and the rain pounding down on me. Something was bundled in my arms, something heavy and solid, wrapped in a blanket. My feet were bare and wet but they knew where they were going. Somewhere safe.

  Inside Moth’s caravan it smelt of dust and herbs and books. The cat was curled up beside my feet, purring. A lantern flickered on the low table next to the bed. The rain was a metallic clatter on the caravan roof, the thunder rumbled in the distance – the growl of a tiger that had lost its prey.

  I was holding something heavy and familiar, wrapped in a damp blue blanket. I unwrapped it. It was my book of fairy tales.

  ‘I saw your light,’ Moth said. She was sitting there in the darkness at the other end of the caravan. She stood up and came to sit beside me. ‘What did you bring to show me?’ She took the book gently from my hands. She looked at it, turning the pages with care. She saw them all – those extraordinary, infinite worlds – enchanted forests, underwater cities, royal palaces . . . ‘Beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘Beautiful.’ She closed the book and rested the spine on her lap, her hands pressing the covers together. She smiled her crooked smile, then she moved her hands away and allowed the pages to part. It was my trick. She wanted to see where they fell open. I tried to stop her and reached out – ‘Don’t,’ I said. But it was too late.

  We were inside the gingerbread cottage, inside the witch’s oven – a great gaping mouth of fire. I felt, as I felt every night, when I forced myself to look at this picture, the burning heat on my face – the heat of fire and guilt. I was Gretel. My brother had been fattened for the oven and dragged from his cage. Now he would be killed and I had done nothing, nothing to save him. It was my fault. It was all my fault. It should have been me, not him . . . If I could just change the story – just go back – please – can’t I just go back? Make it so it never happened . . .

  But the flames of the oven were the faces of hellish demons, so horrible, they twisted and winked as I watched them. The coals glowed the colour of molten metal. The fire was so hungry – I knew I had to stop it somehow but I was too frightened and it was all too late – there was nothing I could do . . .

  ‘Robert gave it to me,’ I said.

  ‘You can tell me,’ Moth said, her warm hand on mine. She was watching my face. ‘You can tell me the story of what happened to your brother.’

  ‘I can’t . . .’

  She closed the book of fairy tales and gave it back to me. ‘Stories are powerful things,’ she said quietly. ‘And sometimes we have to be very brave to tell them.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Tell me what happened . . .’

  So I did.

  It began and ended with the moon.

  The moon that night was huge and low in the sky. I stared at it until I felt I could reach out and touch its dusty white surface. I remember thinking it was like an eyeball, watching me, watching all of London . . .

  I was hungry. I had been sent to bed without supper after arguing with Robert that evening. We were fighting more and more. Soon there will be three of us, though, I remember thinking – and I won’t be the youngest any more. The new baby is on its way and I will be a big sister. I crept downstairs and helped myself to a chunk of bread and a glass of milk. I thought about waking Robert up to join in my feast – it was the sort of thing we used to do when we were a bit younger – but then I remembered the way he had spoken to me that evening.

  I wasn’t sleepy at all, so after my snack I decided to go up to the attic and read for a while in my comfy chair. I tiptoed along the landing, towards the attic stairs.

  ‘You’re supposed to be in bed, Henrietta,’ a voice hissed from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned to see Robert standing there in his striped pyjamas, his arms folded across his chest, his frown just like Father’s. He was still angry with me.

  ‘And so are you, Robert,’ I hissed back, climbing up the stairs to the attic. Those spiteful words were the last that ever passed between us.

  They told me later that the fire had spread from the house next door – an oil lamp left burning in an upstairs bedroom. It was a clear summer night and I had curled up in my
chair by the window to look at my brand-new book of fairy tales. The book had been my birthday present from Robert just the day before. I had never owned anything quite so beautiful. I thought about going back downstairs to say sorry to him, to make friends again. Tomorrow, I thought. I’ll say sorry tomorrow . . . I remember reading the beginning of The Little Mermaid and gazing at the endless blue-green turrets of her underwater kingdom. I remember my eyes growing heavy and the fluttering of the curtains in the night breeze.

  I was aware of something while I slept – a crackling and sighing like the warm breath of an animal. Then someone shouted my name and I was awake. I took in a lungful of smoke before I realized the attic was on fire. I tried to shout back but the smoke was like needles in my throat. I couldn’t see. Someone shouted again – closer. I was feeling my way through the attic. I bumped into the corner of the table and immediately knew where I was. My feet found the top of the stairs and I felt my way down, away from the flames, away from the smoke, coughing and coughing, my eyes streaming.

  Mama’s arms were around me and I was safe. Nanny Jane was there. She pulled us both towards the main staircase – ‘We need to get out – now! Outside – now!’ But Mama wouldn’t move, she screamed at Father: ‘Where is he? Find him, John, for God’s sake, find him!’ Her hand was at her throat as if she herself were suffocating. Father ran from room to room.

  ‘Up there? Was Robert up there with you?’ He was shouting at me, but staring up into the burning attic.

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ I couldn’t stop coughing. Nanny Jane dragged me and Mama towards the stairs. Father yelled at us to get outside, and then we heard Robert’s voice – above us – a distant, half-choked shout. That was when I understood the horrible truth. He had watched me go up the attic stairs. He had known I was up there. He must have fought his way through the smoke to find me – a brave knight battling a fierce dragon. A hero. And now, somehow, I was safe and he was lost. It should have been me up there . . .