Rose 4: Rose and the Silver Ghost (10 page)

Rose gasped. ‘Did you? No one told us that. So you know what happened? Why they left me? You know why I ended up at St Bridget’s?’ In her eagerness to hear, she reached out her hand to Eliza, wanting to touch the little kneeling figure, to show her how important this was. Her hand slipped into the darkness inside the mirror, and she yelped at the sudden cold.

‘Come back!’ Gus hissed, and he raked his claws over her wrist. Rose pulled her hand back sharply, and sucked the long scratches, glaring at him. ‘What did you do that for?’ she mumbled.

‘Who knows where you would have ended up, stupid girl. Be careful! What did I say to you before we started this?’

‘But she isn’t some horrible thing we’re opening a door to,’ Rose argued back.

‘We don’t know what she is. She may have been Eliza Lampton once, who’s to say she hasn’t changed? Don’t touch her, for all our sakes!’ Gus stared suspiciously into the mirror, and the ghost stared back, looking anxious.

‘Stop squabbling!’ Bella leaned closer to the mirror. ‘Eliza, will you tell us about Miss Miranda? How she ran away, and what happened after?’ She didn’t say please, and her tone was imperious, but it seemed to be what Eliza was used to. She nodded eagerly, looking almost relieved. She was used to orders.

‘Yes, miss.’ She closed her eyes, remembering. ‘Miss Miranda asked me to help her pack. She swore me to secrecy.’ There was pride in her voice. ‘She told me the master would never let her and John Garnet be together, and they were going running off to London to get married. She’d had a fight with him, you see. We all heard the shouting, all us servants. Miss Miranda wanted me to fetch her a carpet bag or some such, out of the attics. She couldn’t go up there without people noticing, you see.’

‘She must have trusted you,’ Rose murmured.

Eliza nodded proudly. ‘And she never put a spell on me, miss, even though she could have done. She knew I’d not tell her secrets. So I fetched her a bag, and I fetched one for myself and all. I told her I was going with her. Well, she tried to say no, and she was that embarrassed, poor dear, because she had to tell me she’d not be able to pay my wages any longer. She knew the master would cut her off without a penny, mean old skinflint that he was. She’d be living on what John Garnet could earn for them, and he’d have no references from the master, would he? So it would be a labourer’s wages, if they were lucky.’

‘But she was a magician! Couldn’t she use her magic?’ Bella sounded disgusted.

Eliza shook her head. ‘She didn’t know how to do much that was useful with it, miss. It didn’t cook the dinner, or wash the clothes, and she couldn’t do any of her grand spells, in case the spies her father had put after them found out, you see? She used to make a lovely warm fire, though, I’ll say that.’

‘Where did you go, when you got to London?’ Freddie asked curiously.

‘Some nasty low place close by Covent Garden,’ Eliza sniffed. ‘Miss Miranda didn’t like it, but she didn’t say a thing. She was good like that, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. It was all they could afford, specially as they’d had to buy a marriage licence with his savings.’

Rose nodded thoughtfully. She could imagine her mother’s life after her elopement much more easily than the pampered existence she’d had before. She had never lived in the London slums herself, but many of the other girls at St Bridget’s had arrived half-grown, when their families had been wiped out by hunger, or by some terrible sickness that had spread through the city. They had hated being confined to an orphanage, but they’d regarded three meals a day (even if mostly cabbage), and an outfit of clean clothes that almost fitted, as the height of luxury.

‘Did he get a job?’ she asked. ‘My – father?’

Eliza nodded. ‘As a porter, miss. Unloading the carts bringing the fruit and vegetables to the market. They were so pleased. It was a cruel, hard job, but he was used to working out in the open air, from being a gardener. And soon enough we worked out that she was having you, and she was going around in a dream-world. I’d never seen her that happy, never.’

Rose found she was smiling. ‘They wanted me, then?’ she whispered.

‘Wanted you?’ Eliza snorted. ‘You’d think a baby was something that had never happened before. Your father, he made you a cradle out of fruit boxes, and the toys he carved! A Noah’s ark, with all the animals, all lined up waiting. She even sewed for you, miss! And for Miss Miranda, that wasn’t usual. She hated sewing. Mind you, she was cheating, I’m sure. She could never have made those little dresses without a spell to speed the sewing.’

Bella looked envious. ‘I want that spell,’ she whispered.

‘It was almost the only magic she did while they were living there, miss, that and keeping the fire going. She was sure her father still had his spies out, she didn’t want to get caught. And she never said, but I think she was sick of it, anyway. Magic reminded her of her family, you see, and the way they’d cut her off. All the magicians she knew, they all thought she was mad, she said. She didn’t want anything to do with them, or their magic.’

‘What about Miss Fell? Miss Hepzibah Fell, I mean?’ Rose asked. ‘We know her – now, in our time. She didn’t cut Miranda off, did she?’ Rose gripped the mirror frame tightly.

Eliza smiled. ‘No. Miss Miranda said she wished she could tell her aunt where she was going, but she was right under her brother’s thumb. He’d have it out of her faster than a greased rabbit, Miss Miranda reckoned, and he’d make her life a misery doing it. Miss Hepzibah was safer not knowing.’

Rose drew in a shaky breath of relief. She hadn’t known how important it was for that to be true. Even though Miss Fell had been lying to her, or at least not telling her the truth, for ages, she desperately wanted to be able to trust her. But it made her grandfather sound fearsome, if he was someone who could terrorise Miss Fell.

Bella was frowning thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if it was Miranda leaving that made Miss Fell so…well, you know. Stiff-spined. She said she fought with your grandfather, and left because she was so angry. That doesn’t sound like the same person Eliza’s talking about. I can’t imagine Miss Fell under anyone’s thumb now, can you?’

Rose let out a nervous giggle at the thought, but then she nodded. ‘I think my mother did her a favour.’

‘What went wrong?’ Gus leaned in closer to the mirror from Freddie’s shoulder. His ears were laid back, and he looked and sounded fierce.

Eliza darted back as though he’d aimed a blow at her, and Rose wondered if he had, by magic. She gave him a stern glare, and he gazed coldly back. Rose shuffled her feet, embarrassed. Sometimes she forgot that Gus was probably a great deal older than she was, and certainly a great deal better at magic.

‘Wrong?’ Eliza quavered. ‘Oh! He died, sir.’

‘Oh!’ Rose whispered. ‘John Garnet? My father died?’ For a few moments it had been such a lovely story, she had almost seen it, a little room, warm with firelight. The cradle ready, and the line of little wooden animals watching over it. Hints of it, little glints, had moved in the mirror behind Eliza, she was sure. Now there was only darkness again.

Eliza nodded. ‘It was a horse, miss. One of the carthorses, with a load of cabbages. Trampled, he was. It was awful. I thought Miss Miranda would die herself, she was that stricken. He’d made a little mouse for the ark, the night before, the size of a fingernail, it was. She sat there holding it, and crying because there was only one.’

‘She’d left everything to marry him, and he was gone, just like that,’ Rose murmured. ‘I would be too. Cabbages!’ she added, with a choking gasp of horrified laughter. ‘I’m surprised it wasn’t fish,’ she sobbed.

‘Oh, there, miss…’ Eliza wrung her silvery hands, and then stretched out towards the glass nervously, dabbing at it with her fingers, as if she wanted to reach through and touch Rose. ‘It’s only vegetables, at Covent Garden. Oh, I can’t, I can’t… You!’ she hissed at Bella. ‘Put your arms around her! Miss, I mean,’ she added hastily.

Bella did as she was told, patting Rose a little awkwardly, and even Gus stepped from Freddie’s shoulder to hers, and nudged her cheek. Freddie took a step backwards and offered Rose his handkerchief from a safe distance.

‘So what did she do?’ Rose whispered sniffily at last. ‘She can’t have gone back. Did she die too?’

Eliza shuffled regretfully, winding her fingers into the strings of her apron. Clearly she didn’t want to say.

‘Tell me!’ Rose snapped, and felt guilty when the little ghost’s eyes went round and fearful, though not as guilty as she’d thought she would.

‘She used her magic, miss. She had to, you were well on the way, so she couldn’t do anything heavy, like. She didn’t want to – she thought her father would find out, and come after her. But she didn’t have a choice. She sent me to put a little card up in the window of the Three Bells, the pub down the street.
Any Tasks Undertaken
, it said.
Discretion our watchword. No love philtres.
Miss Miranda said those would probably make our fortune, but she couldn’t bear it.’

‘Did he find you then? Mr Fell?’ Freddie asked. He was so fascinated he’d forgotten to avoid tearful girls, and had crept up close to the mirror again.

Eliza shivered. ‘No.’

Freddie drew in an excited, anxious breath. ‘But someone did?’ he guessed, leaning close to hear Eliza whisper.

‘It were all right at first,’ the little servant muttered. ‘She did little things. Found a lady’s lost lapdog. Found an old man’s will for his son, when he’d died and not said where he’d hidden it. But then she started to get known, you see? She was getting a reputation. And this shifty-eyed man came. He wanted her to look at some gold coins, and see if they were real, or forgeries. He said someone had used them to pay him.’ She shivered again. ‘And if they did, I feel sorry for them, I truly do.’

‘The coins were fake?’ Gus asked, with a professional sort of interest. Mr Fountain had made his fortune as the country’s only successful alchemist. Gus, as his familiar, clearly regarded this as research. He had stopped being quite so unpleasant.

Eliza nodded. ‘Very clever fakes, Miss Miranda said. With a spell on them to make them even better.’

‘Hmf.’ Gus considered this, his eyes hooded.

‘When Miss Miranda told the man, I could see he weren’t happy,’ Eliza whispered, her eyes dark with the memory of fear. ‘I couldn’t tell if what he’d said was the truth, or whether he’d made those coins himself, and he just wanted to see if she could tell.’

‘You think he was the counterfeiter?’ Gus demanded sharply, and Eliza nodded very slightly.

‘I thought so. Miss Miranda was just glad he paid her in the real kind. She was past caring, poor thing.’ Eliza eyed Rose almost accusingly. ‘Made her life a proper misery those last few months, you did.’

Rose nodded mutely, unsure if she should apologise. It was the strangest conversation.

‘It was the very next day that
he
came.’ Now Eliza was visibly trembling. It made her strange silvery skin shimmer all over, and she wrapped her arms around her chest, as though to try and hold herself still.

Rose found herself trembling too. ‘He?’ she whispered.

‘The counterfeiter told him. He must’ve done. Miss Miranda was on his patch, see? He came, and he had the card from the Three Bells’ window. He said we didn’t need it any longer, and somehow, when he said it, I knew it was true. He had the gift. He could make you believe anything, Pike could.’

‘Pike? That was his name?’ Bella sounded contemptuous, but Eliza frowned at her.

‘One of the stableboys told me once what a pike is – I’d never known before. Great big river fish, all greyish green and spotted. They lie in wait for the smaller fish, hanging still in the water, hardly even twitching their fins. And then a poor little fish swims past, and the pike leaps on it, and swallows it whole with its huge great teeth. They’re so crazed, sometimes they try to eat a fish that’s as big as they are, and die trying. Nasty, evil things.’

‘They taste nice, though.’ Gus’s bright pink tongue stuck out of his mouth for just a second, and his eyes misted with the memory.

‘Stop it, Gus. He likes fish,’ Rose said apologetically. ‘Did he bewitch Miranda too?’

Eliza shook her head thoughtfully. ‘Not at first. It took him a lot longer to catch her. She was sitting there, watching him drink tea, and she had a look on her face – same sort of look as that one had just now –’ she pointed to Bella – ‘like she thought he was common. And when he started saying that she was on his territory, she just laughed. But she was so tired, what with the baby, and grieving for Mr John. He went on, and on, and on at her. She didn’t see what he was doing. She was such an innocent, you see. All the time he was wrapping her in layers and layers of magic. Like a spider wrapping up a fly. The more he talked, the weaker she got, like he was drawing the strength out of her, sucking out her insides.’

‘Ugh.’ Bella shuddered.

Eliza nodded, and leaned closer to the glass again. ‘And when she was all drained out, he sent
his
magic into her. She was like a puppet, dancing on strings.’ She sighed. ‘I couldn’t tell her. I could see it, but he wouldn’t let me tell her. I couldn’t move, let alone speak. I just sat there in the corner, and she thought I was being a good, quiet servant, and all the time I was raging and screaming inside!’

‘What did he do to her?’ Rose begged, her nails digging into her palms, sure that she was about to hear how her mother had died.

Eliza laughed sadly. ‘He told her to pack. She only had her little carpet bag, and another bundle of the baby clothes. He had her walking out of the door, and I was still sitting there on the stool in the corner. But then she stopped – she didn’t see me – but she knew something was wrong. She knew I was missing. Even though he had her all wrapped up in a spell, she remembered me.’ The pride in the little ghost’s voice was pitiful. ‘She made him stop, and bring me too.’

Gus twitched his whiskers. ‘You
wanted
to go? To be kidnapped by this powerful underworld magician?’

Eliza simply stared at him. ‘Where else would I go? Miss Miranda knew I didn’t have anywhere else. I couldn’t have gone home, even if I could find the fare for the stage from somewhere. And it would have to have been somewhere a decent girl wouldn’t even think of, mind you. No, if I’d have gone home, my dad would have sent me right away again. My family lived in a tied cottage, one that belonged to Mr Fell. If they’d taken me back after the way I’d run off with Miss Miranda, my whole family would have been out. We’d all have been in the poorhouse. I burned my boats when I went with her, Mr Cat.’