The Wrong Girl (Freak House) (12 page)

"Then it would seem I'm not normal."

Mr. Gladstone smiled. "Let's see what we can discover during the hypnosis." He picked up a gold disc attached to a chain. "Concentrate on this object and my voice, Lady Violet." How could I not? The disc was right above my nose and his voice slid against my skin and melted through to my bones. I felt like I was sinking into it, surrounded by it, lost in it. "Your body is feeling heavy. Your eyes want to close. Close them, Lady Violet. Listen to my voice."

I heard nothing more as I slipped away.

***

"Well?" I said, sitting up on the sofa. "What did you learn?"

The two hypnotists stood beside me just as they had done before I fell asleep. Both frowned.

"Nothing," Dr. Werner said, adjusting his glasses. "Absolutely nothing, I'm afraid. There is indeed something blocking access to that compartment."

"Compartment?"

Mr. Gladstone sat on a chair nearby. He didn't look at me, but down at his palms.

Dr. Werner retrieved a clay model of a head that had been sitting on a table near the window. It was cut in half to reveal the brain inside. "Everything about us—our memories, our abilities and thoughts—are stored in different areas of our brains." He pointed to various parts of the head. "On rare occasions, access to these are blocked off. The blockage is usually caused by an accident, but I've known of cases where some other sort of traumatic experience has closed off the compartment where the memory of the experience is contained. It's the brain's way of coping with the event. Usually hypnosis will reveal to us what that event was, and by discussing it with the patient afterward, we're able to permanently unblock the blockage."

"But not with me?"

Mr. Gladstone looked up and shook his head. "Not with you, Lady Violet."

"What does that mean?"

The two men exchanged concerned glances. "It's almost impossible to say," Mr. Gladstone said.

Dr. Werner cleared his throat. "In all likelihood, it means the event was so traumatic that your mind wouldn't cope if the compartment were unblocked, and the memories became accessible again."

Mr. Gladstone winced as if he'd not wanted his employer to reveal that much. He opened his mouth to say something then shut it again and returned to studying his hands.

"I see," I said. "Well, thank you for your help." I stood and hardly noticed when Mr. Gladstone stood too and took my elbow. I felt distant, removed, as if we'd just been discussing another patient and not my own situation. Perhaps the hypnosis hadn't quite worn off completely.

"I'll call in your friends," Dr. Werner said.

"Wait. Before you do, tell me, what would it take to unblock that compartment?"

He paused at the door and glanced once more at Mr. Gladstone beside me. I felt the assistant stiffen and heard the air hiss between his teeth. "I don't know, Lady Violet. You may never regain those memories. That may not be a bad thing, however."

Jack was standing just outside the door when Mr. Gladstone opened it. "Were you listening in?" I asked him.

"No!" he said, unblinking. "Not at all."

Sylvia made a miffed sound through her nose. "The door was too thick to hear anything through it."

"I wanted to make sure you came to no harm," Jack said.

"I'm quite all right. Thank you, Dr. Werner, Mr. Gladstone."

"Wait a moment." Jack held up a hand. "What happened? What did you learn?"

"Nothing, I'm afraid," Dr. Werner said. "I'm sorry your visit to London has been a waste of time."

"Not a waste at all, Doctor," said Sylvia. "We have other activities to pursue during our stay."

He bowed to her then to me. "I bid you good day, ladies. Mr. Langley."

Mr. Gladstone took my hand and held it in a grip that had me quite alarmed with its firmness. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Lady Violet. Perhaps...perhaps you'll come again and we'll have more success next time."

"Or not," said Jack. "Send the account to Claridges. We leave in the morning."

We left, but the feeling that Mr. Gladstone was unsettled never left me. Whatever the reason, he mustn't have shared it with the doctor. I should have questioned him, but a very big part of me didn't want to know. I had the horrible feeling it was related to the trauma Dr. Werner mentioned. I didn't want to dwell upon that at all. For now, I was of the opinion that what I didn't know couldn't harm me.

Perhaps if I kept telling myself that, I might even have believed it.

"Are you all right?" Sylvia asked when we were in the carriage.

Jack lounged back on the seat and rubbed his hands down his face, over his jaw.

"Go ahead," I said. "I know it's killing you not to ask."

He huffed out a breath. "Did they...did anything...? Oh bloody hell. I should have stayed with you in there."

"Calm down. Nothing untoward happened. You heard Dr. Werner say that his reputation is of the utmost importance to him."

"So what did they do?" Sylvia asked. "What did it feel like?"

I shrugged. "Like I couldn't keep my eyes open. Mr. Gladstone's voice was simply..." I shook my head, unable to describe its rich, modular tones, the way it hummed through my mind.

"I know," Sylvia muttered. "His voice was as handsome as his face."

"I'm not quite sure that's how I'd explain it."

"So you just fell asleep?" Jack asked. "Then what?"

"Then I woke up. How long was I in the room?"

"Only ten minutes," he said. "You didn't experience anything while you were in a hypnotic state?"

"Not a thing. No dreams, no consciousness of what was happening in the real world. Nothing."

"Remarkable," Sylvia said, shaking her head in wonder. "What skill that Mr. Gladstone has. And to think, he's only an apprentice."

"August will be disappointed it came to nothing," Jack said.

"It was your idea," Sylvia pointed out.

"Doesn't mean it was a good one." He turned to look out the window and she winked at me. She did enjoy vexing her cousin, but he didn't seem in the mood to toss it back as he usually did.

***

Fortunately my mind was kept from wandering back to Dr. Werner's rooms and the hypnosis by an afternoon of shopping. An
entire
afternoon. By four o'clock, Jack declared he'd had enough and insisted we return to the hotel. "You've been into every milliner, dressmaker and perfumer on Oxford Street and beyond, some of them twice," he said. "There's only so much a man can stand. Besides, Violet's feet are sore."

"Don't stop on my account," I said.

"You're limping."

So he'd noticed that. My feet ached like the devil, and if I had to suffer through one more shop assistant uttering false sympathies about my hair color or bust size, I'd scream. I knew pink didn't suit me, but did they need to hold a swathe of silk in that color up to my face at every turn then
tsk tsk
over the effect? It was as if they delighted in revealing how unfashionable I was. Perhaps that was the whole point. An uncommon number of them seemed to be trying to catch Jack's attention, and once they learned I was a friend and not a relation like Sylvia, the claws came out. It made me long for the attic and solitude. Well, perhaps it wasn't quite that bad, but I'd stopped enjoying myself hours earlier.

"Just one more shop," said Sylvia. "I'm yet to find a hat in just the right shade of gray."

Jack looked heavenward and sighed.

"You could wait in the carriage," I said. Olson had followed us along Oxford Street, our purchases in the storage compartment at the back of the carriage. We had, however, decided to walk so that Sylvia could have a closer look through the windows and see which shops she wanted to enter. It turned out that she wanted to enter every single one.

"I'll come with you," Jack said. "Here's a milliner's you haven't been to yet. Let's get it over with."

He held the door open and we entered. Several heads swiveled toward us, some belonging to the shop assistants, and others to the shoppers. It seemed we were quite the objects of curiosity wherever we went, and this time was no exception. Their gazes quickly took in both Sylvia and I before settling upon Jack. Then the flirting began. Some simply stared at him, but the more outgoing girls sidled close, pretending to be interested in something nearby. One or two even spoke to him outright, which I thought incredibly forward since they hadn't been introduced.

"Jack does appear to be popular here in London," I said to Sylvia as we inspected the hats on display.

"Of course," she said with a laugh. "He's young, single, handsome and clearly a gentleman of means. Most of these women have been watching us all afternoon, some even following us."

I watched Jack standing by the door, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, including me. If he knew he was being ogled, he didn't show it. His ignorance didn't last long, however. A woman shopping with her daughter approached, smiling like a clown at a circus.

"Excuse me, but you're Mr. Bellamy, aren't you?" she said to Jack.

He bowed. "No, madam. My name is Langley."

The woman's smile didn't waver. "Indeed? I do apologize. You resemble my friend Bellamy to a certain degree."

"I'm sure he doesn't," Sylvia muttered.

"You think she lied?" I whispered back.

"If Bellamy were indeed her friend, she'd know what he looked like."

"Then why the ruse?"

"She has a daughter of marriageable age." She nodded at the girl of seventeen or so who observed her mother out of the corner of her eye. "They probably think Jack is a potential suitor, and the mother wants to be the first of her acquaintance to engage his interest. Keep listening."

A shop girl approached and Sylvia left me to be shown some hats at the back. I continued to watch Jack from beneath lowered lashes as I strolled between tables and hat stands.

"You must be new to London, Mr. Langley," the woman said. "I've never seen you at any of the parties."

"I come to the city rarely, and only for business. I live in Hertfordshire, madam, with my uncle, August Langley."

A small crease connected her thin eyebrows. "That name sounds familiar. Where in Hertfordshire is your uncle's house, Mr. Langley? Perhaps that will refresh my memory."

"Frakingham House, near Harborough."

The woman's mouth pursed as if she'd tasted something bitter. "Oh." She stepped away. "Good day to you, sir. My apologies for mistaking you for my friend. I can see now that you're nothing like Mr. Bellamy." She scuttled away and rejoined her daughter.

"Mama?" the girl whispered. "What's wrong?"

The mother's voice was too low for me to hear her entire answer. The only words I could make out were "Freak House." It was enough to explain her change in behavior.

Sylvia bought two hats in different shades of gray, and Jack carried the boxes out to the carriage and bundled them into the storage compartment with the others. "Satisfied now, Cousin?" he asked Sylvia as he settled opposite us on the seat.

"Why are those women looking at us like we have two heads?" she said.

I followed her gaze to the woman who'd questioned Jack and her daughter. They did indeed eye us from beneath their hat brims. "You were right about them," I told her. "The mother wished to throw her daughter into Jack's path at any parties he might deign to attend."

Jack rolled his eyes.

"Yes, but why does she look as if she wants to run in the other direction to get away from us?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "What did you say to her?"

"Nothing," he said. "I gave her my name and place of residence, that's all."

Sylvia flounced back into the seat and crossed her arms. "How
could
you?" One corner of his mouth lifted and her glare sharpened. "It's not amusing."

"I'm sorry," he said, sobering. "I know it matters to you. I just wish you knew that they don't matter to me."

"What doesn't?" I said. "I don't understand."

"Whenever we go anywhere, which isn't often, Jack likes to tell people where we're from."

"It's called introducing myself, Syl. It's what people do when they meet."

"Yes, but can't you lie? Why do you have to tell them we're from Frakingham?"

"Because we are. The sooner you come to accept that, the happier you'll be."

"I doubt I could ever be happy to be associated with Freak House."

Jack looked quite unnerved by her misery. "Those people aren't for the likes of us," he said quietly.

"You shouldn't let them bother you," I said to her. "I agree with Jack. They don't seem like the sort of people you'd want to be friends with anyway."

"That's easy for you to say. You and Jack
are
the freaks. I'm the freak by association. It's not fair."

Her remark cut through me to the bone. I'd thought we'd become friends of sorts, but to say something so offhandedly callous proved there was still an ocean of differences between us. She was right, of course. I wasn't normal. Now I knew I was also very much alone.

We arrived at Claridges, and instead of coming inside with us, Jack bid us farewell. "I'm going for a walk," he said.

"Where to?" Sylvia asked.

"Nowhere in particular. I need to stretch my legs."

"You've been walking all day."

"You object to me wanting to spend some time alone?"

"Do whatever you want," she said huffily, striding off.

I watched Jack go and chewed my lip. Should I follow him? If I did, would I learn more about him? I knew he was going to see Patrick, the person he suspected of breaking into Frakingham House, and I desperately wanted to find out who Patrick was and how Jack knew him. But I would have to follow him surreptitiously, and that meant being alone, more or less. I didn't consider myself a fearful person in general, but being on my own in a city the size of London set my nerves on edge. What if I lost Jack? What if I wandered into one of the less appealing areas I'd seen on our journey in?

"Lady Violet!" called a familiar voice.

"Mr. Gladstone!" I said as he came up to me. "Are you here to see me?"

"I am. May we talk?"

Down the street, Jack turned the corner, unaware of the medical student's presence. I made up my mind then and there. "Yes! Excellent. Let's talk and walk at the same time. I have a mind to be out and about in this fresh air."