The Sweet Far Thing (51 page)

First is a title page. Next is a poem. “The Rose of Battle,” by Mr. William Butler Yeats.

“‘Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!’” I read aloud. “‘You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled / Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring / The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.’”

It seems a fine poem, from what I can tell, as it doesn’t make my teeth ache, and I decide it shall be the poem I’ll recite at our masked ball.

Opposite that page is one of the illustrations that grace the book. I must have glanced at it a half dozen times without really seeing it—a simple ink drawing of a room with a table and a single lantern, a painting of boats hanging on the wall. With growing excitement, I realize it is rather like the room I’ve seen in my visions. Could it be the same one? And if so, where is it? Here at Spence? And could this be where Wilhelmina Wyatt took the dagger? I run my fingers over the inscription beneath it:
The Key Holds the
Truth.

Quickly, I flip through the pages, searching for other illustrations. I locate the tower again, and I wonder, could it be the East Wing as it once stood? Flip again, and there’s a drawing of a leering gargoyle above the inscription
Guardians of the Night.
Another drawing shows a merry magician, much like Dr. Van Ripple, placing an egg inside a box, and the next panel shows the egg vanished. It is entitled The Hidden Object.

The drawings don’t correspond with the text, from what I can tell. It’s as if they exist as their own entity, a form of code. But for what? For whom?

Miss McCleethy enters, fuming. “Miss Doyle, I’ll not tolerate such an appalling lack of discipline and sportsmanship. If you don’t care to play the game, you may sit on the field and cheer your schoolmates.”

“They are not my mates,” I say, turning a page.

“They might be, if you weren’t so desperately in love with being all alone in the world.”

It’s a shame Miss McCleethy did not take up riflery, for she’s an excellent shot.

“I tired of the game,” I lie.

“No, you tired of the rules. That would seem to be a habit of yours.”

I turn another page.

Miss McCleethy steps forward. “What are you reading that is so captivating you feel it necessary to ignore me?”

“
A History of Secret Societies
by Miss Wilhelmina Wyatt.” I glare at her. “Do you know it?”

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Her face drains of color. “No. I can’t say I do.”

“And yet you purchased a copy from the Golden Dawn bookseller’s at Christmastime.”

“Have you been spying on me, Miss Doyle?”

“Why not? You spy on me.”

“I look after you, Miss Doyle,” she says, correcting me, and I hate her for this lie most of all.

“I know you knew Wilhelmina Wyatt,” I say.

Miss McCleethy rips off her gloves and drops them onto a table. “Shall I tell you what I know of Wilhelmina Wyatt? She was a disgrace to the Order and to the memory of Eugenia Spence. She was a liar. A thief. A filthy addict. I tried to help her, and then”—she taps the book with her finger—“she wrote these lies to expose us—all for money. Anything for money. Did you know that she tried to blackmail us with the book so that we might abandon our plan to raise funds for the restoration of the East Wing?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she was spiteful and without a shred of honor. And her book, Miss Doyle, is no more than twaddle. No, it’s more dangerous than that, for it contains perfidies, corruptions of truth written by a traitor and peddled to the highest bidder.”

She closes the book with a loud crack and, snatching it from my grasp, marches straight for the kitchen.

I run after her, catching up just as she opens the oven door.

“What are you doing?” I say, aghast.

“Giving it a proper burial.”

“Wait—”

Before I can stop her, Miss McCleethy throws
A History of Secret Societies
into the oven and shuts the door. For a second, I’m tempted to tell her what I know—that I have seen Eugenia Spence, and that this book may save her—but Eugenia told me I should be careful, and for all I know, McCleethy is the one who cannot be trusted. I can only stand by whilst our best hope burns.

“That cost us four shillings,” I croak.

“Let that be a lesson to you to spend your money more wisely in the future.” Miss McCleethy sighs.

“Really, Miss Doyle, you do try my patience.”

I might tell her that is a common sentiment where I am concerned but it seems ill-advised. Something new pricks at me.

“You said ‘was,’” I say, thinking.

“What?”

“You said Wilhemina
was
an addict and a liar, a traitor. Do you think she might be dead?” I say, testing.

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Miss McCleethy’s face pales. “I don’t know whether she lives or not, but I cannot imagine, given her state, that she’s still alive. Such a life takes a toll,” she says, seeming flustered. “In the future, if you wish to know about the Order, you need only ask me.”

“So that you can tell me what you want me to hear?” I say, challenging her.

“Miss Doyle, you only hear what you want to believe, whether it’s true or not. That has nothing whatsoever to do with me.” She rubs the sides of her head. “Now, go and join the others. You are dismissed.”

I storm out of the kitchen, cursing Miss McCleethy under my breath. The girls pour in from the lawn.

They’re flushed and smell a bit ripe, but they’re giddy with the excitement that running about in games of spirited rivalry brings. We rarely are allowed to give free rein to our competitive natures, though they live in us just as strongly as they do in men. Cecily turns her chin up at the sight of me. She and her clan give me withering looks, which, I suppose, they think the height of insult. I put my hand to my heart mockingly and gasp, and, freshly offended, they march off whispering about me anew.

Upon seeing me, Felicity crouches like a master swordsman, cutting swoops into the air with her fencing foil. “Villain! You shall answer to the King for your treachery!”

Delicately, I push the long, thin blade aside. “Might I have a word, d’Artagnan?”

She bows low. “Lead the way, Cardinal Richelieu.”

We steal into the small sitting room downstairs. It’s where Pippa famously spurned her intended, Mr.

Bumble, before being claimed by the realms forever. The loss of Pippa is one more I feel acutely today.

“What the devil did you do to Cecily?” Felicity plops into a chair and dangles her legs over the arm in a most unladylike way. “She’s telling everyone who’ll listen that you should be hanged at dawn.”

“If it would keep me from hearing her voice ever again, I’d happily submit to the noose. But that isn’t what I need to tell you. I had another look through Wilhelmina Wyatt’s book. We missed something the first go-round. The drawings. I think they’re clues.”

Felicity makes a face. “To what?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. But one of them seemed as if it might have been the East Wing tower. And in the very front of the book was a room that I keep seeing in my visions.”

“Do you think that room was once part of the East Wing, then?” Fee asks.

“Oh,” I say, deflating. “I’d not thought of that. If so, it’s long gone.”

“Well, let’s have a look,” Felicity says.

“We can’t. Miss McCleethy threw it in the oven,” I explain.

Felicity’s mouth opens in outrage. “That cost us four shillings.”

“Yes, I know.”

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“And tonight’s meal shall taste strangely of book.” She sticks the tip of her foil into the floor and scrapes a small
F
there.

“There’s something not right about it,” I say, pacing the room and nibbling my fingernails, a habit I should stop, and will. Tomorrow. “I don’t trust McCleethy. She’s hiding something for certain. Do you know what she said to me? She referred to Wilhelmina Wyatt in the past tense. What if McCleethy knows Wilhelmina is dead? And if she does,
how
does she know it?”

“Dr. Van Ripple said Wilhelmina was betrayed by a friend,” Felicity adds. “Could it have been McCleethy?”

I chew my nail, shredding it to ribbons. It hurts, and I am instantly sorry I’ve done it. “We must speak with Dr. Van Ripple again. He may know something more. He may know where the dagger is hidden.

Are you for it?”

A wicked grin spreads across Felicity’s mouth. She touches her foil to my shoulders as if knighting me.

“All for one and one for all.” Her expression changes suddenly. “Why do you think she did it?”

“McCleethy or Miss Wyatt?” I ask.

“Ann.” She leans on the hilt of her foil. “Freedom was within her grasp. Why turn away from it?”

“Perhaps it was one thing to yearn for it and another to hold it.”

“That’s ridiculous.” With a scoff, she sprawls across the chair again, one foot on the floor, the other leg hanging over the arm.

“I don’t know, then,” I say with no small irritation.

“I’ll not turn my back on happiness. I can promise you that.” She jabs at the air with her foil. “Gemma?”

“Yes?” I say with a heavy sigh.

“What will happen to Pip? When I was one with the tree, I saw…”

“Saw what?”

“I saw her alive and happy. I saw the two of us in Paris, the Seine glittering like a dream. And she was laughing, as she did before. How could I see that if…Do you think it could be true? That she could come back?”

She rolls her head toward me, and I can see the hope in her eyes. I want to tell her yes, but something deep inside me says no. I don’t think it could ever be this way.

“I think there are some laws that cannot be broken,” I say as gently as I can, “no matter how much we wish they could be.”

Felicity draws in the air with her blade. “You think, or you know?”

“I know if it were possible, I should bring my mother back tomorrow.”

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“Why don’t you, then?”

“Because,” I say, searching for the right words. “I know she’s gone. Just as I know that time when we were all together in India is gone, and I shan’t get it back.”

“But if the magic is changing—if everything is changing, then perhaps…” She trails off, and I don’t try to correct her. Sometimes the power in a
perhaps
is enough to sustain us, and I shan’t be the one to take it from her.

I can hear Brigid’s off-key warbling in the hall, and it gives me an idea. “Fee, if one wanted to know about a certain inhabitant of a house, a former schoolgirl perhaps, where would one turn for the most trustworthy account?”

Smiling, Fee bends the foil in her hands. “Why, I should think the servants would have that sort of knowledge.”

I throw open the door and peek my head out. “Brigid, might we have a word?”

She scowls. “Wot you doin’ in there? Emily’s cleaned it just yesterday. I won’t ’ave it set to ruin.”

“Of course not,” I say, biting my lip in a fashion I hope passes for wistful. “It’s only that Felicity and I are heartbroken now that Ann’s gone. We know you loved her, too. Will you sit with us for a moment?”

I’m a bit ashamed of twisting Brigid’s sympathies this way—even more so when it works. “Oh, luv. I miss ’er, too. She’ll be fine, though. Just like ’er old Brigid.” She barrels past, giving me a warm pat on the shoulder, and I couldn’t possibly feel more deplorable.

“’Ere now. Sit proper, miss,” Brigid scolds, seeing Felicity. Felicity slides both of her feet to the floor with a loud stomp, and with a glance I beseech her to behave.

Brigid runs a finger over the mantel and scowls. “That won’t do.”

“Brigid,” I begin, “do you remember a girl who attended Spence—”

“Lots of girls ’ave attended Spence,” she interrupts. “Can’t remember them all.”

“Yes, well, this one was here back when Mrs. Spence was still alive, before the fire.”

“Oh, so long ago.” She tuts, wiping the mantel with the edge of her apron.

Felicity clears her throat and glares at me. I suppose she thinks she’s helping.

“This girl was a mute. Wilhelmina Wyatt.”

Brigid whirls around, a funny expression on her face. “Blimey, now wot you want to know about that one fer?”

“It was Ann who knew of her. Had a book written by her. And I—we—just wondered what sort of person she was.” I finish with a smile that can only be described as feeble.

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“Well, it were a long time ago,” Brigid repeats. She dusts a small Oriental vase with her apron. “But I remember ’er. Miss Wil’mina Wyatt. Mrs. Spence said she was special, in ’er way, that she saw wot most of us don’t. ‘She can see into the dark,’ she said. Well, I didn’t pretend to know wot that meant.

The girl couldn’t even speak, bless her soul. But she were always with ’er little book, writing and drawing. That’s ’ow she spoke.”

Just as Dr. Van Ripple told us.

“How did she come to be here? She had no family, I know,” I say.

Brigid’s brow furrows. “Bless me, she did, too.”

“I thought—”

“Wilhelmina Wyatt was Missus Spence’s own blood. Mina was ’er niece.”

“Her niece?” I repeat, for I wonder why Eugenia didn’t tell me this.

“Came to us after ’er mother died, bless ’er soul. I remember the day Missus Spence went to town to fetch ’er. Lil Mina ’ad been put on a boat by ’erself and was found near the Customs ’Ouse. Poor thing.

Must’ve been terrifyin’. And things weren’t much better ’ere.” Brigid returns the vase and gets to work on the first of a pair of candlesticks.

“What do you mean?” Felicity asks.