A Very Unusual Pursuit (10 page)
‘But can you show us to the infirmary, before you leave?’ Miss Eames requested, in a briskly confident manner that infuriated Birdie. ‘And perhaps introduce us to Fanny Tadgell?’
‘Oh, I’ll do
that
, Miss. You cannot be left to wander about on yer own at night.’ Mrs Gudge cast a worried glance around the kitchen, as if checking that every dish was washed and every flame extinguished. Then she picked up a glowing oil lamp, clumsily knocking against a shelf as she did so. ‘I’ll take you to meet the girl,’ she said, ‘and when you’re all done, Mr Hobney will let you out.’ On her way to the door, she stopped suddenly and asked Alfred, ‘It’ll not . . . there’ll not be too much
noise
, I hope?’
Alfred shrugged. ‘Bogles ain’t loud, as a rule,’ he replied. ‘Which is why they escape notice.’
‘Stealth is their greatest weapon,’ Miss Eames concurred – almost, Birdie thought crossly, as if she had a right to say anything.
Alfred pretended that he hadn’t heard Miss Eames, even though his eyes flickered. ‘I’d not be surprised if the lass had to sing,’ he told the cook, much to Birdie’s delight, ‘but she’ll do it soft, and wake no one.’
‘Oh dear.’ Mrs Gudge sighed, before throwing a feebly apologetic smile in Miss Eames’s direction. ‘Could you see yer way to covering that pie, Miss Eames? A smell like that could wake the whole men’s ward, never mind any bogle hereabouts.’
‘Of course,’ Miss Eames murmured, tucking the linen towel back over her pie.
Then she followed everyone else out the door, down the adjoining passage, and into the garden.
It was still damp outside. Though night had fallen, there was just enough light from Mrs Gudge’s lamp – and from one or two upper windows – to give Birdie a vague sense of how large the workhouse grounds were. The back door of the administrative block opened onto a very spacious garden, which was flanked by two three-storeyed wings projecting from the rear of the main building. And though at first Birdie couldn’t see what lay further to the south, a few glimmers in the distance told her that
something
did.
‘That’s the men’s ward to yer left, and the women’s to yer right,’ Mrs Gudge whispered. ‘Keep to the paths, or you’ll trample on our carrots.’
So it’s a kitchen garden
, Birdie thought, peering at a wide expanse of dim, feathery shapes. The shadow cast by a ragged scarecrow made her start, then shudder. She felt very uneasy. For as long as she could remember, the workhouse had loomed large in her nightmares. It was the fate that had threatened her since birth. One misstep – one stroke of bad luck – and she would be off to break stone in the workhouse. Birdie had heard all the workhouse stories, and believed every one of them. She had heard that workhouse children were starved and flogged; that they were marched in straight lines like soldiers; that they laboured from dawn till dusk.
She had always sworn to herself that she would rather die than set foot in a workhouse. And yet here she was. ‘Birdie?’ Miss Eames stooped to hiss in her ear. ‘Believe me, I don’t want to make your life more difficult. On the contrary, I’m trying to improve it.’
‘Shh!’ Birdie refused to listen. There was a bogle nearby, so she had to stay strong. She had to forget that Miss Eames was plotting against her. One day, if Miss Eames was successful, Birdie might end up in a workhouse just like this one. But for now, she had to pretend that Miss Eames didn’t even exist.
So she turned her face away, scowling.
‘That’s the infirmary,’ Mrs Gudge suddenly declared. She had stopped at a fork in the path, and stood with her lamp raised, pointing towards another large, dense shape to their right. ‘You’d best wait here while I fetch Fanny. I’ll not be long.’
She scurried with the lamp, which began to illuminate details of the building that finally swallowed her up. A golden gleam bounced off three stacked rows of blank, dark windows. It brushed across brown brick and green paint. For an instant Mrs Gudge was silhouetted against a rectangle of light as the infirmary door opened and shut.
Shortly afterwards, she emerged again through the same door, bringing with her another woman carrying another lamp. Or
was
it a woman? Squinting at the newcomer, Birdie decided that she was no more than thirteen or fourteen years old – very young, for a nurse.
‘This is Fanny,’ said Mrs Gudge, on rejoining the group in the garden. ‘Fanny, this is Mr Bunce, and Miss Eames, and . . . um . . .’
‘Birdie McAdam.’
Fanny grinned. With her froth of dark curls, her upturned nose and her plump red cheeks, Fanny looked surprisingly healthy and cheerful. She wore a shapeless striped gown, a dirty apron, a cotton cap, and flapping slippers. Her front teeth were missing.
‘Are you the Go-Devil man?’ she asked Alfred.
‘Aye.’ He surveyed her warily. ‘Are you the girl as saw the bogle?’
‘That’s me!’
‘Shh! Don’t talk so loud.’ Mrs Gudge gave the girl’s arm a shake. ‘Do you want to get rid o’ this bogle or not?’
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Fanny said – though she didn’t sound very sorry.
The cook sighed. ‘I’ll bid you goodbye now, Mr Bunce. Miss Eames. Fanny will take you back to Mr Hobney when you’re finished.’ She shot Fanny a doubtful glance. ‘You’ll do that, Fanny, won’t you? You’ll be a good girl?’
‘Oh,
yes,
ma’am.’ As Mrs Gudge turned away from her, with a slightly dissatisfied air, Fanny pulled a grotesque face at her back. Only Birdie saw it happen. And when their gazes locked, Fanny winked.
‘Should I collect the rest o’ the fee from Mr Hobney?’ Alfred inquired of Mrs Gudge in a low voice, before she could leave.
She stopped in her tracks. ‘Why, yes. At least . . . did he not mention it? Oh dear,’ she said, flustered. ‘I’ll ask him when he lets me out.’
‘It’s six shillings more.’ Alfred was eyeing her with obvious misgivings. ‘He gave me sixpence in advance.’
‘He has the full sum, I know,’ Mrs Gudge assured Alfred. But she didn’t seem very confident, and after she had walked away into the night, Alfred muttered to himself, ‘I’ll wager he
ain’t
got it, or why would she be fidgeting like a cricket?’
‘She always does that,’ Fanny volunteered. ‘Don’t fret – they’ll pay you. Otherwise you’ll fuss, and the master will find out.’ She began to giggle, then slapped a hand over her mouth to smother the noise.
Birdie couldn’t help smiling. But Miss Eames wasn’t amused.
‘Can you tell us where you saw the bogle?’ she asked Fanny, her tone crisp and impatient.
‘I’ll
show
you where I saw it,’ Fanny offered, starting forward. Alfred, however, pulled her back.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk here, first. Tell me where you think the bogle is.’
‘Oh, it
has
to be in the well.’ Fanny eagerly explained that the schoolhouse block occupied its own fenced yard, which had a gate that was locked at night. So the vanished children had been let out either by the schoolmaster or the schoolmistress, both of whom had custody of the keys. ‘Up to the gate, them kids was safe and sound,’ Fanny insisted, wriggling with excitement. ‘Mr Winch recalls letting ’em out – and Miss Percy, too.’
‘Is Miss Percy the schoolmistress?’ Miss Eames wanted to know.
‘
That
she is.’ Fanny rolled her eyes. ‘And wouldn’t help a poor, sick child cross the grounds at night –
oh
no. Every one of ’em had to walk past the laundry all alone, though some was bent double with the flux, poor lambs.’
Fanny spoke in a kind of low, pious chant, as if she were imitating someone else. But when she returned to the subject of the bogle, her voice quickened again, becoming squeaky and breathless. ‘The old well lies between the laundry and the infirmary, though it’s closer to the laundry. And its cover’s broke in two.’
‘There’s a cover on the well?’ Birdie interrupted.
‘Of course! D’you think they’d leave an open well among the weeds, to swallow every passer-by?’ Then, realising that she was talking too loudly, Fanny began to whisper again. ‘That stone might be heavy, but two men can raise it. I seen ’em with me own eyes, when they dragged the well.’
Alfred grunted. After a moment’s thought he said, ‘You found no trace o’ the children?’
‘Not a hair,’ Fanny replied with exaggerated solemnity.
‘Not even a lamp?’
‘There weren’t no lamp to find. Two o’ the bigger boys had to risk being spiked on a bean-stake, for Mr Winch don’t hold with lamps when the moon’s bright.’ Fanny’s tone was drenched in scorn. ‘The other two took candle stubs which warn’t never seen again – and don’t think we stopped hearing o’
that
in a hurry. The master claims they was stolen
.
“No different from stealing a watch,” he says—’
‘But
you
saw something.’ Alfred cut her off. ‘When was that?’
‘Last week,’ said Fanny. ‘Two nights after little Matilda went missing. I needed a breath of air, so I came out that door, Mr Bunce . . .’ She gestured at the infirmary. ‘And I walked down towards the laundry a bit, and saw something move.’
She stopped, then shivered. Birdie wondered just how scared she really was. For a workhouse girl, anything that broke up the monotony of life would probably be welcomed, even if it
was
a child-eating bogle. Perhaps that was why Fanny seemed almost to be enjoying the drama of the occasion.
As she went on to describe the large, dark, slithering shape that she’d glimpsed in the shadows, Alfred began to frown. When she revealed that she hadn’t mentioned it for several days, he fixed her with a baleful look. ‘You didn’t go out for no breath of air,’ he objected.
‘I did!’ Fanny yelped, before hastily lowering her voice. ‘There’s sick folk inside, and lots o’ bad smells . . .’
She trailed off, because Alfred was shaking his head. ‘You’re little and tender, like a spring lamb,’ he pointed out. ‘That bogle were coming for
you
, or you’d not have seen it. But summat scared it off.’
‘Were you meeting someone, Fanny?’ asked Miss Eames. She levelled a bright, accusing gaze at the pauper girl, who bridled and retorted, ‘What if I was?’
‘We won’t tell no one,’ Birdie hastened to assure her, before Miss Eames could take Fanny to task and spoil everything. ‘We just need to know what happened.’
‘Well . . .’ Fanny hesitated for a moment. Then she shrugged, smirked, and proudly confessed, ‘There’s a feller I know from the infirmary. But it’s against the rules for us to meet, so we do it in secret.’
‘And you arrived first, and saw the bogle, but yer friend came along and it disappeared.’ Alfred had been leaning close to Fanny, so that he wouldn’t miss a word she let fall. Now, as she nodded, he pulled away from her and rasped, ‘You can walk me to the well, but don’t say a word. Don’t
nobody
say a word. For it’s a quiet night, and this bogle don’t like crowds.’
‘Mr Bunce.’ Suddenly Miss Eames weighed in. ‘Will you please allow me to bait your trap with a pie, before you place Birdie at risk? I understand you’re both reluctant to change your ways, but I
did
pay sixpence in advance, if you recall.’
Birdie felt her cheeks burning. Before she could open her mouth, however, Alfred said to Miss Eames, ‘I’ll take the rest o’ that money, then, if you’re still of a mind to interfere – though I can’t see the sense in it.’
‘Of
course
not! It’s a
stupid
idea!’ Birdie was about to say more when Alfred’s hand closed on the back of her neck. He thrust his face into hers, so that she shrank away from him, subdued by his stony glare.
‘What did I just tell you?’ he growled. ‘Didn’t I tell you to hold yer tongue?’
She nodded.
‘And is that what you’ll do? Or will you keep blabbing till you scare off the bogle?’
‘I’ll shut me trap,’ Birdie muttered.
‘Good.’ Releasing her, Alfred addressed Fanny and Miss Eames. ‘The same goes for the rest o’ you. I’ll not have a
word said
, or you can hook it. Is that clear?’
Fanny grinned, nodding enthusiastically. Miss Eames took a deep breath, folded her lips into a tense line . . . and swallowed hard before giving a quick little jerk of her head.
Alfred sniffed. ‘All right, then. You can show me the well, now, and mind you tread as soft as a kitten.’ He was speaking to Fanny, but before she could reply, he abruptly shifted his attention to Miss Eames. ‘And when the circle’s drawn,
I’ll
place the pie. I’ll give it one hour, and if the bogle don’t bite, I’ll send Birdie in.’
‘But—’
‘We ain’t got all night, miss. You can take it or leave it.’
Miss Eames took it. And after giving Alfred his money, she once again bent her lips to Birdie’s ear. ‘If that creature doesn’t take the pie, you may eat it yourself,’ she offered. ‘My cook makes a
wonderful
gooseberry pie.’
Birdie didn’t answer. Alfred had warned her to hold her tongue, so she was holding her tongue. Had she been allowed to talk, however, she would have told Miss Eames to stick her pie where it would hurt the most.
I’d like to throw it in her face
, Birdie thought.
She didn’t say so, however. She just kept stomping along in Alfred’s wake, grim-faced and silent.
The abandoned well was tucked between the laundry and the drying-lines. Unlike the neat rows of vegetables and clipped fruit trees that led to it, this patch of ground had an untidy, neglected appearance. A pile of old lumber, waiting to be turned into firewood, was stacked against the laundry wall. Weeds sprouted around the heavy slab of the well-cap, while the grass under the drying-lines was so trodden down that it was scattered with bald spots.
Alfred chose one of these bald spots for his magic circle. In the light of Fanny’s lamp, he carefully arranged a ring of rags on the damp earth. Then he poured out his salt and removed the gooseberry pie from its basket.
After placing the pie in the centre of the circle, he moved away again. But he didn’t join his three companions. Instead he positioned himself by a rusty washtub that had been dumped near the well, his salt in one hand and his spear in the other.
