Peace appeared to be the last thing on George Bremerton’s mind. He had begun to sweat, and tugged at the ends of his sleeves. “Mrs. Eames, for heaven’s sake, please—”
Mrs. Eames silenced him with one hand, like an orchestra conductor finishing a song with a flourish. “You must not vex yourself, mio caro. It is not good for a man’s heart, something I know all too well. Visit the spa as soon as you are able; it will have a calming effect.”
“My condolences again, of course,” he said. “To lose a husband so suddenly. Simply awful.”
Mio caro. Italian then. I watched her dab at the perfectly dry corner of her eye. She sipped her tea and ate precisely one corner of a biscuit, all the while avoiding George Bremerton’s gaze. “Loss can be very oppressive,” she said finally. It had taken her a full moment to come up with a reason to escape his leering. “And this room, too! A lady must breathe. It is time I took some air; a turn about the grounds is just the thing, then of course a drink of the waters.”
Mrs. Eames stood, towering over me, and stared down her nose at me before turning with a flounce and gliding toward the door. Her plan did not go off quite perfectly, and George Bremerton was on his feet and following, giving his nephew a hasty nod good-bye before trotting to catch up with the widow.
“Please allow me to escort you, madam. The gardens are riddled with field mouse tunnels. I all but snapped my ankle in one yesterday. I will guide you safely on your walk.”
Her reply, positive or otherwise, was lost to the muting effect of the hall.
“Thank God that’s over.” Lee blew out a breath and sprang up from the sofa. “Uncle is such a dreadful flirt sometimes. He’s going to drive that woman mad with his badgering. It’s like he’s forgotten all about why we came here.”
The three of them had barely touched the tea, and I quashed an urge to nibble on what they’d left behind. Such waste. Mrs. Haylam would not approve, naturally, and so instead I knelt again and gathered the used cups and saucers onto the tray. At once I felt tension rise between me and the young man—there he stood, idle, while I scrambled to do my job. I took hold of the service to clear it completely, but Lee put up a hand.
“Don’t go just yet.”
“I have a long list of chores,” I replied, chewing the inside of my cheek with agitation. Perhaps you have nothing to do, fancy boy, but some of us must sing for our supper. He would be a nuisance if I had a mind to steal something here and there; I didn’t need him watching my every move. “My position here is so new, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m lazy.”
“Just a moment or two?” he insisted. “I’ll take the blame if you get in trouble.”
“Well? Here I am.” I took a step back from the tray. The silver writing set winked at me from the corner. “Should you not be off on your grand adventure? I thought you were here to uncover the mystery of your parentage.”
Lee turned a dark shade of red, matching the room itself, and wandered to a bookcase in the far corner. He picked up a glass jar containing a few bird bones posed among moss and pretended to study it. “I would be, but Uncle George has fallen into distraction. Can I be totally honest with you, Louisa?”
“Yes.” As if I could stop him.
“You must indulge me. I did rescue your spoon!”
My sarcasm wilted in the face of so much exuberance. “Mm. I all but owe you my life.”
“Precisely! Ha!” His cheeks had faded to a pink color, his smile inconveniently charming. “You see, the plain truth of it is, I’m unbelievably, unbearably bored.”
“Bored?” I had to laugh at that as I joined him near the bookcase. Shifting aside the heavy draperies at the nearby window, I watched George Bremerton deliver the Italian widow to the garden, both of them stumbling over the holey ground. “You’ve not been here two days . . .”
“Yes! Yes, I know, but I have nothing to do here. I could not possibly care less about the stupid spa and its smelly waters. This was all Uncle’s idea, and there are precious few books of interest in the library, and no other guests of my age.” He hung his head, snorting softly. “Ah, perhaps I’m no better than he is—chasing you around, desperate for diversion.”
Lee had a point. Before evening tea, Mrs. Haylam gave me a quick list of the guests currently staying at Coldthistle. Besides Lee and his uncle, there was Mrs. Eames; a physician from London called Dr. Rory Merriman; and a retired military man recently returned from India. Hardly stimulating company for a young man of Lee’s age. Now his uncle and Mrs. Eames arrived more or less unscathed to the gardens and I shut the curtain on them. “Can you not conduct this investigation on your own? Surely your uncle brought some kind of evidence of his hunch. You could find this supposed paramour of your guardian’s. . . . Even if you fail, it won’t be boring.”
Lee’s face exploded with excitement, and he went so far as to reach for my hand and squeeze it before spinning and striding toward the hallway. “I knew you would have the answer, Louisa! I’ll just have a look through my uncle’s papers and see what’s what, and then we can begin unraveling the mystery together.”
At first I thought I had misheard him. What could I possibly offer, and how in heaven’s name would I find the time? I took a few halting steps back toward the tray that still needed clearing. He was already out the door and too far to hear my one whispered word.
“We?” I turned and repeated myself, this time louder.
“Well, who else would help me?”
Our disagreement—well, really, my protests and Lee’s stubborn refusal to entertain them—spilled out into the hall. We both immediately lowered our voices, as if shushed by all the birds staring down at us.
The tea tray had not gotten any lighter thanks to Mrs. Eames’s restrained nibbling, and I stopped at the landing and the stairs leading down. Lee breezed right by the stairs, on a steady course for his room and his uncle’s belongings.
“There’s simply too much I need to do.” Which was true. “I’m confident you can accomplish this all on your own!” Which was a lie. “Beyond that, it’s not . . . appropriate for me to assist you in that capacity. It would look dangerously like friendship.”
“Oh, to hell with appropriate! Yes, I said it!”
“Mr. Brimble—”
“No, you must never call me that,” he said, stumbling toward me. He blushed furiously again, to the tips of his ears. “All right, that was rude and please forgive me, but I find the expectations of society so confusing. Why shouldn’t we be friends?”
“Every life has rules. Why on earth do you think I’m here? I left one set of rules I could not abide in exchange for ones I could. Is that not the very essence of existence?”
I couldn’t imagine why this young man wanted so badly to like me, or why my liking him was of any importance whatsoever. It sounded like he had a family of sorts, even if it was complicated. He had his uncle, and that driver, and probably a whole host of loved ones back on his estate.
Whom did I have?
My little speech cowed or embarrassed him, and he nodded, curling his fingers into fists. “You’re so right.”
Somehow being right didn’t feel nice at all. “I’m just a servant here,” I said in a weak voice. “Good day, Mr. Brimble.”
He turned and strode away before I could even make a polite curtsy. Mrs. Haylam would have me thrown out of the manor if she knew I was speaking to guests this way. My only hope was that Lee took my words to heart and rededicated his attention to his uncle and his inheritance.
I hefted the tea tray into a higher position and turned to descend the stairs. A girl had been watching us from the lower landing—a girl my age. A girl I had seen many, many times before, but not for years, and only ever in my imagination.
The tray fell to the floor with a deafening clatter.
Chapter Ten
On the Shadowmancers of Babylon
and the Elusive Da’mbaeru
The shadowmancers of Babylon developed a technique for capturing and
controlling unusually dangerous spirits. Employing an aetherial force that can interact with the physical world would make a man almost incomprehensibly powerful. Shades once considered uncontainable could be persuaded to work in service to masters they deemed worthy. Arduous trials of strength and intellect were posed by the shades, trials only a handful of shadowmancers ever managed to complete. One such shadowmancer, called Aralu, is said to have dashed their infant son’s head against a wall and cut out their own tongue to satisfy such a shade. Still, the possibility exists that these unruly shades, dubbed Da’mbaeru1 by the scholars of Babylon, remain harnessable through ritual and examination.
Rare Myths and Legends: The Collected Findings of H. I. Morningside, page 66
I only ever had one true friend in my entire life. Her name was Maggie, and a girl who looked exactly like her was gazing up at me now with wide, curious green eyes.
Then she scrambled to help me pick up the fallen tea service. Luckily the teapot itself had dropped straight down, only splashing a little onto the carpets but otherwise landing right-side up. The girl proved she was no hallucination and not my imaginary friend at all, snatching up a wayward sugar spoon and two saucers.
“Oh, heavens!” She had a sweet, high voice (unlike me) and an Irish lilt (like me). Just like I remembered. “These carpets are so slippery as to be treacherous. I’ve fallen a good bit myself.”
She paused, spoon and saucers clutched to her apron, and beamed. “I’m Mary. I heard you might be needing help with the service, so Mrs. Haylam sent me along.”
Mary. But Maggie was the name of my friend. Imaginary friend. Yet there was no mistaking the likeness—the same wild bunches of brown hair tied up with a ribbon, the same mass of freckles over her nose so thick it looked like she had a smear of red paint across her face.
I had to stop staring.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, stooping to help pick up the mess and gather it all back onto the tray. “You just . . . You look like a girl I once knew.”
“Is that so?” She laughed and handed me the rogue spoon.
“It’s . . . just a very striking resemblance,” I said, still dumbstruck. “I don’t mean to be rude.”
“Never mind that; I only hope you have fond memories of her.”
We had recovered the tea service, and she helped me lift it all back up; then she joined me as I walked carefully down the stairs. “I do, actually. She was dear to me. A good friend.”
“In Ireland?”
Of course she would hear the remnants of the old country in my voice. I nodded, taking the stairs gradually, sneaking looks at this uncanny creature who could be a living sculpture of a girl I knew did not exist. But I could feel the warmth of her when her sleeve brushed me; this was a real person. “I had to leave her behind when I sailed for England. That was a hard day. How did you come to be here?”
“My mam did a bit of tailoring and sewing for the master, and he liked her work so well he brought us here from London. It was a good thing, too. She was a proud woman and hated charging pennies for her work. She taught me the needle, and I took her place when she passed last year.”
“What a shame that she’s gone,” I said, feeling unnervingly as if I was once again confiding in my imaginary friend. It felt easy to talk to her, maybe because of how much they looked alike, or maybe because her sorrows were familiar. “I’m sorry.”
“She liked it here, I think, and died happy enough. The master promised to look after me when she was gone, and so far he’s kept his word.”
“I met him briefly.” We lingered outside the kitchen door. I could tell she didn’t want to go in, either, knowing we’d find ourselves faced with new chores that would separate us. How could I feel an affinity for someone so quickly? I felt spiteful now for having chided Lee about trying to force friendships. But this was different, wasn’t it? Mary was like me, abandoned and alone, far from home. . . .
Or this was her home, and the odd Mr. Morningside had become a kind of family. She seemed comfortable. She belonged. Something ached in the back of my throat. Belonging somewhere would be nice. I didn’t know if that place was here, but if so, it would make life simpler.
“He’s ever so kind,” Mary said with a forlorn smile. “And I owe him so much. He pulled us out of the worst part of Shoreditch. It’s not the kind of debt you can ever repay, I think.”
“Nonsense. Every debt can be repaid. You earn your keep, don’t you? He must understand the difficult position your mother left you in.”
Mary shrugged and opened the door to the kitchens for me. Her green eyes were suddenly cold. Far off. “No,” she replied simply. “For, you see, I owe him my very life.”
“Is that so?” I asked, craning my head back in surprise. “I had no idea he was so heroic.”
A little warmth returned to her gaze as she shook her head. “’Tis not too gallant a story, only he made certain I had a place to go and a purpose to bend my thought toward. I couldn’t survive without a place to belong or a kind of family to call my own.”
And here my new purpose was to steal from the house for my own gain. It almost made me feel ashamed. My old imaginary friend Maggie would understand, I knew. Could this girl Mary do the same?
It was a great comfort to retire in my little room at the end of the day. Others might have thought it lonely, but I knew the refuge to be found in the company of only one’s own mind.
An hour or so after supper, Mrs. Haylam had relieved me of my duties and dismissed me. After scurrying under the watchful eyes of the birds hung in the halls, I’d washed up and changed into a simple nightgown, then gratefully fallen into bed. Exhausted though I was from a full day’s work, I had trouble falling asleep. The evening meal had been relaxed, pleasant even. All of us had sat down at the large kitchen table—Mrs. Haylam, Chijioke, Poppy, Mary, and myself, with the hound Bartholomew waiting impatiently under our feet for scraps.
I’d barely spoken, but the conversation had been animated. Chijioke had caught a hare for Mrs. Haylam to cook, and he’d recounted its harrowing capture for all of us, to applause and laughter. Apparently the creature had startled Bartholomew and Chijioke so badly, darting out from under his workbench, that both man and hound had fallen over on their rumps in surprise.
Even Mrs. Haylam had cracked a smile.
And by the end of the meal I’d found myself wishing Mr. Morningside had joined us. I wanted to know more of this unusual young man who pulled seamstresses out of slums and kept hundreds of birds for fun and owned a boardinghouse that he apparently never saw the topside of. It was both sad and easy to imagine him taking all of his meals alone in that office of his. Did he ever keep company? Did he occasionally leave for town?
Now the more I considered him, the stranger he became. In all my reading and experience, I’d learned that the masters of anything tended to live aboveground; not only aboveground but above their servants. Above everything. The rich and the landed were of higher stuff. Loftier. Closer to God.
Surely he must keep quarters of his own somewhere on the higher floors. After all, even the most eccentric of men needed a place to sleep.
I sat up in bed, thinking then that I had done little wandering on the fourth story. Mrs. Haylam had not yet sent me there for any reason, and it occurred to me that it was probably because the master of the house kept his rooms there. And suddenly I had a mind to see for myself. I had stirred myself up with questions, and now I was painfully awake.
It would just be a quick look, I assured myself, a peek around a corner or two to verify that everything in Coldthistle House was operating as expected. There would be some huge, intimidating door with a valet waiting outside. I would feign ignorance of the layout of the house, and then be shooed off back to my own chambers. Curiosity satisfied, sleep would come easier.
And if I got lucky, there would be no valet and no one about. There would be rooms filled with pocket-size trinkets for me to snatch and hide under my bed until the collection grew big enough to fu
nd an escape.
The rich could afford to amass possessions they had no time or reason to count, and then there was me, with everything I owned totaling less than my fingers and toes.
The hall outside the door was so cold, quiet, and dark I could hear a faint ringing in my ears. The corridor stretched out as a pure black tunnel before me, and I retreated to my room to gather the stub of a reading candle I had left burning. Shielding the flame with a palm, I tiptoed out into the hall, shrinking under the watchful avian eyes. Even from the second floor I could feel the tug of the green door down in the foyer. At once, it began singing to me again.
The language of the song filled my head with unquiet thoughts, and my hands trembled, threatening the flame. What strange tongue was this in my mind? Guttural and sharp, both sinister and alluring. . . . It took concerted effort to focus my attention away from the door downstairs and instead travel lightly to the end of the hall and the stairs leading up. Underneath the song I heard quiet footfalls, just a gentle pitter-patter that sounded like it came from over my head, perhaps on the floor above. Was Poppy’s hound loose and wandering, too?
No, it was not the light tread of a pup but something heavier. Dragging. Still, I pressed on up the stairs, gazing behind and ahead, confirming that nobody followed. The third floor was silent, and I peered down into it to see what might be making those footsteps. I saw nothing but more shadow. More darkness. Good. These were the perfect conditions for a bit of light thievery.
The air grew colder as I ascended the next set of stairs. My nightdress did little to ward off the chill. Up and up, higher and colder, and colder, until I became convinced there was no way anyone at all would choose to live in such frozen conditions. And I was right—as I rounded the corner on the topmost level of the house, I found nothing.