A Very Unusual Pursuit (22 page)
‘If you don’t stop this, Letty, I’ll have to prescribe a camisole restraint,’ the doctor warned.
‘Damn you to hell!’
‘
Leticia!
’ a shocked Mrs Ayres exclaimed.
‘He’s gammoning you! Can’t you see that? Are you blind?’ shouted Birdie. She felt like punching someone. ‘He’s going to poison Mr Bunce!
He told me so!
’
‘I’m afraid I must have challenged her one too many times,’ the doctor sadly informed Mrs Ayres. ‘You can see what her family have to put up with.’
‘
I’ll do you down!
’ Birdie roared. ‘
I’ll set a bogle on you!
’
‘Sometimes I fear that she’ll never be cured.’ Doctor Morton was addressing Mrs Ayres again. ‘It would be pointless to attempt anything now. I shall return tomorrow.’
‘
Aaagh!
’ Furious, Birdie threw her whole body against the door. ‘Shall I dose her with laudanum?’ asked Mrs Ayres, sounding worried.
‘No, no. We’ll let her tire herself out, I think.’
Doctor Morton raised his voice. ‘I’m leaving now, Letty! I shall see you again tomorrow afternoon!’
‘
Yer days are numbered, you dimmick!
’
‘Try to be a good girl for Mrs Ayres. She has only your best interests at heart.’ To Mrs Ayres the doctor said, ‘You see our problem. She can be quite amenable for a few hours and then –
pff!
Up she goes. It makes her difficult to treat.’
‘
You pile o’ pig-guts!
’ Birdie bawled.
‘Control yourself, Leticia, or you’ll have no supper today.’
It was Mrs Ayres speaking. But before Birdie could answer, the
click-clack
of retreating footsteps made her pause.
Mrs Ayres and the doctor were walking away.
‘
No! Wait! Come back!
’ Birdie shrieked. When no one responded, she kicked the door several times. Then she burst into tears and threw herself down onto the palliasse.
She wept herself dry, cursing and howling and drumming her feet on the floor.
She wanted to kill Doctor Morton. She wanted to kill Mrs Ayres. She wanted to smash down the door and charge out into the street, waving Finn MacCool’s spear. At one point she jumped up defiantly and started to sing, but her voice was thick with sobs and hoarse from screaming. Even if a friend in the street
did
hear her, there was a very good chance that she wouldn’t be recognised.
By the time Katie-Ann appeared with her supper, Birdie was lying on her palliasse, staring blankly at the ceiling.
‘Now, Miss Leticia,’ said Katie-Ann, ‘Mr Doherty is here, on the mistress’s orders, and if you don’t eat up like a good girl, we’re to put you in a restraint and feed you ourselves. So you’d best tuck in.’
‘I ain’t hungry,’ Birdie growled, rolling over to face the wall.
‘Ah, now, ye can take a bite o’ stewed pear,’ Mr Doherty wheedled. ‘There’s sugar in it.’
‘If you don’t eat, they’ll stick a tube down yer throat and pump you full of beef broth,’ Katie-Ann warned Birdie, who winced. Force-feeding didn’t sound like a pleasant experience. So she sat up and began to eat her supper, while Katie-Ann and Mr Doherty stood waiting for her to finish.
‘Doctor Morton is going to kill Mr Bunce,’ Birdie told them between mouthfuls. She tried to keep her tone even. ‘Will you warn Mr Bunce o’ that? Will you tell him the doctor’s planning to poison his brandy flask?’
The maid and the porter exchanged glances.
‘Mr Bunce lives in Bethnal Green,’ Birdie went on. ‘Off Club Row. Ask anyone living there – they’ll tell you where to find ’im.’ When no one replied, she added, more urgently, ‘He cannot read a letter! He needs to be told!’
‘Eat up, now,’ Mr Doherty mumbled. Katie-Ann said nothing.
‘If he dies, then you’ll be to blame!’ Birdie cried. ‘I hope you can live with yerselves, knowing as how you killed a man through not lifting one finger!’
‘Lass,’ Mr Doherty murmured, ‘I’ve a morning off each sennight, and
that
not for another five days. When am I to spare the time for a trip to Bethnal Green?’
Birdie gazed pleadingly at Katie-Ann, who had crouched down to stack the tea-tray. But Katie-Ann refused to look up.
‘I’ll tell Mrs Ayres you’ve bin good as gold,’ she said. ‘Mebbe that’ll count for summat, though I cannot promise it will. If you’re to get out o’
this
ward, you must be civil to the doctors.’
Then she rose to her feet and left, taking Mr Doherty and the camisole restraint with her.
No one else came to Birdie’s room that evening. She was forced to sleep in her blue serge dress, because she couldn’t undo all the buttons down its back. Troubled by these buttons, which dug into her spine – and by the terrifying images that infested her dreams – she passed a long and restless night, punctuated by fits of teary-eyed sleeplessness.
It wasn’t until long after sunrise that Mrs Ayres appeared again. She burst into the room, rousing Birdie from a fitful doze, and announced that she had a visitor.
‘It’s your aunt,’ Mrs Ayres revealed. ‘Quickly, now! You don’t want to keep her waiting . . . Letty?
Leticia!
It’s your
Aunt Hortense
!’
Birdie couldn’t understand it. She didn’t
have
an aunt.
‘Wha – who?’ she muttered, sitting up groggily.
‘Your aunt is here, Leticia! Wake up!’ Mrs Ayres flicked off her blankets. ‘Come along!’
‘What aunt?’ said Birdie.
‘Mrs Snodgrass, of course. She brought you these clothes, which you’re to put on at once.’ Mrs Ayres dumped an armful of lace and ruffles onto Birdie’s palliasse. ‘Dear me, didn’t Katie-Ann help you to undress last night? I must have a word with that girl . . .’
Birdie didn’t say anything more. Shock and confusion had rendered her speechless; she allowed herself to be pushed about like a little rag doll, as Mrs Ayres replaced the borrowed outfit of blue serge with a dress of pearl-grey silk – which had pink trimmings and embroidered insets and a beaded sash and was altogether the most beautiful dress that Birdie had ever seen. It came with white silk stockings, grey kid boots, and a pink hair ribbon.
The boots were a fraction too large, but everything else fitted perfectly.
‘Your hair needs washing,’ said Mrs Ayres, as she hurriedly tidied Birdie’s wayward curls. ‘Have you eaten breakfast? No? What
has
that girl been doing?
Katie-Ann! Where are you
? Come along, Leticia, don’t dawdle.’
Clasping Birdie’s arm, she hurried into the hallway – where she nearly collided with Katie-Ann. ‘
There
you are!’ Mrs Ayres exclaimed. ‘Take away those clothes I left on the floor. Not the nightgown – the others.’
‘Yes’m.’
‘Does Mrs Snodgrass want any tea?’
‘No, ma’am, but—’
‘I can’t stop. Tell me later.’ Pushing past Katie-Ann, Mrs Ayres hustled Birdie towards the front of the building, where there were no padded rooms or long, empty hallways covered in scarred paint. Now that she was on her own two feet, and it wasn’t the middle of the night, Birdie could see much more of London House – which was richly endowed with fine plasterwork and polished joinery. Glimpsing her reflection in a gilt-framed mirror, she saw a pale, shocked face and staring eyes.
Then Mrs Ayres yanked her through an open door into a big room lined with velvet curtains, plush carpet and damask wallpaper. Near the extravagant marble fireplace, which had tinsel in its grate, sat an old lady wearing a vague, sweet smile. She wore a black gown and a white cap, and she wasn’t Mrs Snodgrass.
She was Mrs Heppinstall.
‘Hello, dear,’ she said to Birdie. ‘How nice you look.’
‘Hello . . . Aunt,’ Birdie mumbled. She flicked a glance at Mrs Ayres, her heart beating wildly.
‘I hope you’ve not been misbehaving,’ Mrs Heppinstall continued. ‘Have you been saying your prayers?’
Birdie nodded. The old lady’s tranquil tone amazed her. Could this really be a brazen rescue attempt, or was there something going on that Birdie didn’t understand? Mrs Heppinstall seemed so
calm.
‘Leticia looks rather pale, Mrs Ayres. Has she been eating enough meat?’
‘Well – she has been with us for only two nights, Mrs Snodgrass—’
‘What about eggs? Did you give her an egg for breakfast this morning?’
Mrs Ayres hesitated in a way that filled Birdie with a ferocious sense of satisfaction. ‘She hasn’t eaten breakfast,’ Mrs Ayres had to admit.
Mrs Heppinstall clicked her tongue. ‘Dear
me.
Then I suppose I must feed her myself.’
‘Oh, but—’
‘Come, Leticia.’ Rising awkwardly, with the aid of a wooden stick, Mrs Heppinstall extended a hand towards Birdie. ‘I’ll take you to the Holborn Restaurant, so that you may have a nice chop.’
‘But Leticia’s treatment has barely begun, Mrs Snodgrass! I don’t know what Doctor Morton will say about a trip to a chop-house.’
‘My niece may be intractable, Mrs Ayres, but that does
not
mean she ought to be starved,’ was Mrs Heppinstall’s mild rejoinder. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what her mother will say if you drive the roses from the poor girl’s cheeks. This child has a very delicate constitution
.
’ She smiled at Birdie, her blue eyes wide and innocent. ‘If we go to the Holborn, dear, you
will
be a good girl, will you not?’
Birdie nodded vigorously, taking the old lady’s proffered arm.
‘Uh – Mrs Snodgrass?’ Mrs Ayres scurried after them both, across the threshold and into the entrance hall. ‘When can we expect Leticia back?’
‘Oh, when she becomes fractious, I daresay,’ Mrs Heppinstall replied. She had paused to let a flustered Katie-Ann open the front door for her. But to Birdie’s intense frustration, the old lady didn’t head straight out into the fresh air and sunshine. Instead she turned back to Mrs Ayres and said, ‘Incidentally, the Holborn is not a chop-house
.
It is a
restaurant
, and perfectly respectable. I often eat there.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Mrs Ayres smiled bravely, but Birdie could tell that she was anxious. While Mrs Heppinstall made her way down the front steps, Mrs Ayres stood in the doorway, staring after her. Birdie didn’t like that stare. It had a suspicious edge to it. So she remained utterly silent as she helped Mrs Heppinstall into the carriage that was waiting in the street.
Luckily, it was a private carriage – not a hired one – and that must have reassured Mrs Ayres. As soon as Mrs Heppinstall had disappeared into it, Mrs Ayres promptly turned around and let the big, blank, grey facade of London House swallow her up. Even so, Birdie didn’t say a word until she had shut the carriage door behind her.
Then she rounded on Miss Eames, who was skulking beside Mrs Heppinstall, and squeaked, ‘How did you
do
that? How did you
know
?’
Miss Eames opened her mouth. But before she could answer, the carriage gave a lurch and began to move. Mrs Heppinstall immediately grabbed Birdie, who had nearly fallen across her lap. ‘Can you squeeze in, my dear?’ the old lady inquired. ‘I’m afraid it’s rather cramped. Mr Fotherington was
most
kind to lend us his brougham, but it’s not a very roomy vehicle.’
‘I can fit,’ Birdie assured her, wriggling down between the two women. She couldn’t believe how deliriously happy she was to see Miss Eames (Miss Eames, of all people!), though her happiness was overshadowed by a dreadful, gnawing fear that caused her to blurt out, ‘Doctor Morton plans to kill Mr Bunce! He told me so!’
‘What?’ Miss Eames frowned at her from beneath a tilted hat-brim.
‘He’s going to poison his brandy flask! We have to warn Mr Bunce!’ Birdie peered out the nearest window. ‘Where are we going? Back to Bethnal Green?’
‘Wait a minute.’ Miss Eames laid a hand on Birdie’s arm. ‘What brandy flask? Explain.’
Birdie took a deep breath. ‘Mr Bunce puts his flask in his sack,’ she revealed. ‘But now Doctor Morton has the sack, and will poison the brandy afore it’s returned—’ ‘
Samuel!
’ Miss Eames cried suddenly. She grabbed her aunt’s stick and leaned forward, rapping it against the front window. ‘
Samuel, stop! STOP!
’
The carriage jolted to a standstill, so abruptly that everyone was nearly flung onto the floor. Then Miss Eames turned to Mrs Heppinstall, saying, ‘We cannot go home. We must go straight to Mr Fotherington’s house.’
‘Yes, of course,’ her aunt faltered. ‘Oh dear. Oh dear me.’
‘
To your master’s house, Samuel!
’ Miss Eames bellowed. ‘
Do you hear
?’
‘Aye, miss!’ The driver’s muffled voice only just managed to penetrate the little wheeled box. ‘Back to Mr Fotherington’s, is it?’
‘
Yes, please!
’
Birdie, meanwhile, was glancing from face to face, looking for an explanation. ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded. ‘Who
is
Mr Fotherington?’
‘He is a very old friend,’ said Mrs Heppinstall. ‘When I pleaded with him to give us the use of his town-house for a few hours, he generously agreed to spend the day at his club—’ ‘It’s a trick,’ Miss Eames interrupted. ‘Mr Bunce and I have laid a trap for Doctor Morton. But if what you say is true . . .’ She paused for a moment, shaking her head. Her face looked quite drawn, and her dark eyebrows stood out more starkly than usual – perhaps because she was so pale. ‘If what you say is true,’ she finally muttered, ‘then we may have made a terrible mistake.’
As the brougham bounced and swayed through the streets of Hackney, heading west, Miss Eames proceeded to tell her tale. She had decided to pay Birdie another visit, and had taken a cab to Bethnal Green at about noon the previous day – only to discover that Birdie wasn’t at home. Alfred was, though, and he was in a dreadful state, pacing and muttering and wringing his hands.
‘He wouldn’t stop talking,’ said Miss Eames. ‘He told me how Doctor Morton kidnapped you, and how he himself had been locked in a crypt—’
‘It weren’t a crypt,’ Birdie interposed. ‘It were a chapel.’
‘Well – whatever it was, he had been released from it by some unfortunate mother who had come to mourn her dead child.’ Miss Eames went on to describe how her frantic conversation with Alfred had been cut short by the unexpected arrival of Elijah Froggett, the rag-and-bone man. Elijah had been at the Hackney workhouse that morning, and in the course of a business transaction had heard a young inmate talking about Birdie McAdam. ‘It was that foolish girl Fanny, who showed us the disused well,’ Miss Eames explained. ‘She had been sent out on an errand earlier in the day, and had heard you singing, Birdie, inside a house that she
knew
to be a private lunatic asylum.