Wasp (39 page)

‘Come with me.’

Wasp’s half-awake eyes stare at Nightingale through tousled hair. Her face is puffy and disbelieving. She waves a hand in protest. ‘Why are you here? I don’t need to resume my duties yet.’

Nightingale indicates the wardrobe. ‘Find a day gown and put on your slippers.’

Wasp thumps out of bed with the grace of a Shire horse. Nightingale notices the bandage on the girl’s shoulder, the way she still favours it. That will pass soon. How quickly the hurt inside might heal is another matter.

Wasp dresses in silence then, at Nightingale’s beckoning, follows her along the passage. Every step is full of defiance. ‘Am I being punished again?’ Wasp demands. ‘Is this retribution for what happened at the Cellar? Isn’t my brand enough?’

Nightingale presses a gloved fingertip to her lips, opens her bedroom door and waves Wasp inside. She enters reluctantly, as if some form of spidery trap awaits, but no peril lurks in the walls, carpets or curtains. Nightingale closes the door and retreats to a corner. She points to the shelf beside her bed — to the item that sits there.

‘That box has been moved.’

‘You brought me here to tell me that?’

Nightingale waves a finger. ‘No one lays a hand on it but me. No one touches it, moves it or opens it. That rule is as fundamental to the House as any other. I know that casket’s place on the shelf to within a hair’s breadth. It has been tampered with.’

‘Don’t you keep it locked?’

‘No, Wasp, I don’t keep it locked. Not any more. That would defeat its purpose.’

‘D’you expect me to admit to touching it?’

‘I expect you to open the lid and tell me what you see inside.’

‘Can’t you look yourself, especially as you are so precious about who goes near it?’

‘I could look myself, but to do so would likely kill me.’

‘I don’t understand. Is it a trap?’

‘For me, yes. For you, not yet.’

‘Suppose I don’t do it?’

‘You will.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you can see that I’m frightened of what’s in that box.’

The girl thinks about that for a moment. She remains suspicious, and has a right to be, but the same determination that took her all the way to the Cellar will guide her hands now. ‘You don’t need to take it down,’ Nightingale prompts. ‘Just open the lid for a peek.’

She does as she is asked, her hands pink against the woodwork. Nightingale imagines a long sigh of air as the lid is prised open, though in truth it makes no sound at all.

‘A muslin bag,’ Wasp says, peering through the crack.

‘Is it full?’

A shake of the head. ‘No. Only half full. Tiny brown lumps of something are spilled across the bottom.’

Nightingale half sits, half collapses onto the bed. Her cheeks turn numb as the blood drains out of them. ‘Then it’s true.’

Wasp drops the lid and steps away from the shelf. ‘What’s true? What’s the matter?’

‘You’re catching me at a difficult moment, Wasp. Before we discuss this further I want you to tell me something. What would you be prepared to do in order to attain something you wanted? Or believed you wanted?’

‘I don’t know if I can answer that. A part of me wants to run away, to start afresh somewhere else. Another part of me wants to go home, to face the people who wronged me, though I’m not yet sure how I would accomplish that.’

‘You have no home outside the House.’

‘My village. I want to undo what was done.’

‘You are dead. You expect to resurrect yourself?’

‘You can’t kill me. Not that way. I never chose to come here. I was tricked into a carriage with locks and blinded windows. I’d sooner have been dragged behind a hurdle than suffer that.’

‘You blame your people? It’s their fault?’

‘No, it’s mine.’

‘You can’t go back. No one goes back. Think of the consequences. It’s not simply a matter of turning up on your own doorstep.’

‘I’m not sure I can live with the consequences of not doing so.’

‘Run away or seek revenge — an interesting choice. Suppose you were forced into making it?’

‘Why are you doing this to me? What kind of woman are you?’

Nightingale throws open her fingers. Calling cards, dozens of them, flutter to the rug. ‘This is who I am. The sum of me. Other people’s names scratched onto a piece of paper. That and a gold-trimmed day gown, and beautiful dresses that don’t belong to me.’

‘So? You had nothing when you arrived, like the rest of us.’

‘I had a daughter. ’

‘A
child
? Was such a thing allowed?’

‘I don’t know. I could never discover if the Fixer took my baby away because she was in danger from the House or in danger from me. All I remember is a cry. When she was born. It was far away, beyond the cloud of the dream makers. The Fixer says he tried to place her in my arms, but I couldn’t hold her, couldn’t put her to my breast. We were on the road and on the run. He had to beg milk for her tiny belly. I don’t recall her face. Did she look like me? Have my eyes, my cheeks, my hair? Even though I know none of these things I think about her every day.’

Nightingale leans over, tugs on the dresser drawer and pulls out a wad of toddler’s garments.

‘Are those your daughter’s clothes?’

‘No, Wasp, I stole them. The shopkeeper was so taken with my face I could’ve lifted the counter from under his nose and he’d not twitch an eye. I’m grateful I’ve not gone mad enough to steal a baby from its cot, though I’ve considered it more than once. I keep thinking I shall find her, and when I do she’ll have nothing, and I’ll have nothing to give her. So I take the clothes, from shops, washing lines and once out of a mother’s hands. Though I daresay my child will have outgrown the lot by now I can’t see her as anything other than an infant.’

She pinches her chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘I don’t know if I’d recognise her. I missed the first words, the first steps. Perhaps even now she’s playing with friends, or picking flowers in the park with a woman she thinks of as her mama. Would my crashing into her life ruin things for both of us? I don’t even know her name
 . . .
’

Nightingale returns the garments to the drawer. ‘You are surprised? Perhaps you thought me heartless? A witch with flint for a soul? It may be I was that once. Pain can gnaw at your nerve endings until it seems there’s nothing left to feel.’

Wasp glances at the box. ‘What was I looking at in there?’

‘The dream makers. That’s what I call them. An apothecary or herbalist would no doubt have another title. For me they drew a curtain over the sharp edges of the world. I became someone else. And because of that I thought I could be happy.’

‘Are they poison?’

‘No, a remedy. Of sorts. Do you want to try them? They will take you out of here. Lift you as far as you want to go. You will crave them like you would a lover, and while they are a part of you there’s no need to come back. Ever.’

‘No. You’re afraid of that box. You said so yourself. Why do you even keep it there, on that shelf, in plain view?’

‘It is part of my covenant with the Fixer. The contents of that box made a slave of me. He broke its chains by taking my baby away. I can make a captive of myself again any time I choose.’

‘He makes you keep that box in your room?’

‘He wants to see if the desire is still there. ’

‘And is it?’

‘Yes. It still is. The box is both a torment and a means of escape. A terrible means. I can leave the House by throwing away my soul, or keep that lid closed and try to walk out of here with my head up. I have hopes, Wasp, hopes that I might see my daughter again. I need to stay in the real world, not flee to the dream one. And that, more than anything, is why I don’t touch the box. One day I’m going to sit in the park with a large bonnet to keep off the sun. I want to watch the roses bloom and hear playing children laugh. I want to wear a soft, white woollen scarf around my shoulders and not care if clouds drizzle on me. I don’t wish to be rich or blessed with a handsome husband. I had a slice of men before ever putting a foot over this doorstep. I’d like a room overlooking a lawn with a cedar tree spreading in one corner. The room will be filled with my things, trinkets and baubles, letters, cuts of coloured lace, items of no value except what they mean to me and the fact that they are
mine
.’

‘Yet your box has been tinkered with.’

‘Yes. Another symptom of an ever growing malaise.’

‘Have you told the Abbess?’

‘The Abbess is losing her wits. Not quite all together, no, and not all at once. You can see it here and there, in little ways, but soon I think these will roll into one big whole. She built this place and held it together through those self-same wits. Once they are gone all that will be left are the rats.’

‘Rats?’

‘Already they are gathering. They whisper, hold clandestine meetings, make plans. They scamper both inside and outside these walls. I won’t lie. I know this has been building for a while. There are too many people with big ambitions. The House is a juicy pie and they all want their cut. Now you’ve come along and somehow put a spark to the tinder.’

‘Me? How so?’

‘Think, Wasp. The Abbess has no heir. If she falls, those rats I mentioned will scrabble over the pieces she leaves behind.’

‘Did you ask me to look in the box just to tell me this?’

Still that defiance.
‘The muslin pouch you saw was always full. Now it’s half empty. The dream makers are a potent force. Their theft bodes trouble.’

Nightingale stands and paces around the bed, squeezing the material of her gloves together. Only a persistent thread of curiosity is keeping this girl here, she realises. If Wasp wishes to walk back out that door there is nothing to be done about it. As a Harlequin, Nightingale expects obedience from the other girls, but this one is not so easily leashed. She could be the saving of them all.

‘Soon the House will be holding what is known as a Parade. Those girls not on distant Assignments are dressed up and sent to the Scarlet Parlour. Clients enter and select the escort of their choice. Government ministers, peers, men of the highest rank all take their turn. It is quite the gathering point for our country’s noble and illustrious. Someone of a certain disposition might think to use that influence to their advantage.’

‘A Parade?’

‘In truth it’s no more than a dandied-up party. During such events the Masques are feted as the Toasts of the Town. Most of these cullies are on a trophy hunt. We watch them ride their aristocratic high horses then pauper themselves to beg a sweetmeat out of a Masque’s hand. Everyone wallows in the attention. Some more than others.’

‘So much for respecting clients.’

Nightingale gives a tight smile. ‘The fleecing begins the moment clients step through the front door. They dine only on the finest French cuisine at extortionate prices. Bottles of claret are served at triple their worth. Girls are perfumed down to their toenails. Only the very air comes without charge, and rumour has it the Abbess would extract a price for that if she could. But this Parade, I suspect, will differ. I think the Queen is about to be deposed.’

‘Then why not leave? I know you can. Moth saw you getting on a coach at the Meldrum inn. You could go looking for your daughter and not come back.’

‘Only one person knows where my child is, and that is the man who gave her away. The Fixer. Both he and Kingfisher are the ropes that keep me bound to this room, no matter how far an Assignment or otherwise will take me.’

‘Can’t you do something about it?’

‘God help me I have, and much as I want my daughter I fear for the consequences. But there is something else. The House exerts a thrall. Most of us have fallen under that spell, myself included. We know no other home and the comforts provided here have made us idle and compliant. If turned out into the street I doubt we’d survive the week. You, however, have both a mind and a heart that won’t sit still. Dragging me along to the Cellar proved that, and suffering a brand hasn’t cowed you. I’d go so far as to say you might prove our only hope — my only hope. Because I suspect I shall never truly leave here until you lead me out by the hand.’

She let the girl go then, and marvelled at how easy opening her heart had proved. It must be dark times indeed.
You never cease to surprise yourself,
she thinks. Now she must become a Masque again. An Assignment at the theatre awaits and she needs to be at the dressing room early to have the pick of the gowns. Nightingale whispers out of her room, closes the door behind her and, before she can stop herself, lets out a short, sharp scream.

A bloodied apparition pads along the hall towards her, toes leaving scarlet pockmarks in the carpet. A loose pattern of handprints spreads across the front of its shift. Eyes scorch out of that red mask.

Nightingale feels a moan burble from the back of her throat. She searches for cuts, a wound, anything that can cause such a horror. She grabs the spectre’s wrist. Her hand slides off, smearing some of the redness across her fingers. The scent of petals fills her nose.

‘Rouge,’ Nightingale whispers.

The Abbess’s emblems are smothered by the thick paste. Her features have turned into a scarlet dough. Not a patch of her skin has been left uncovered. Nightingale can see it glimmering darkly through the translucent folds of the old woman’s silk shift.

‘Abbess, what have you done?’

‘I wanted to look beautiful.’

‘We must get this off you at once. All of it.’ Nightingale steers the old woman into the bedchamber and kicks the door closed.

‘Don’t bring your box of sin near me, girl. I don’t need your sorcery.’

‘No sorcery, just a good clean.’ Nightingale plucks the towel from the side of her washbowl, dampens it and starts wiping the Abbess’s face and hands. Within moments the material is saturated with rouge. What will be said in the washhouse?

‘You can’t judge me,’ the Abbess says. ‘Look at your own eyes.’

‘I won’t touch the box. You know what it means.’

‘There are some things even you would break your head and heart over. I doubt I’d do more than chip them at best. I’m not so witless I don’t know what’s happening. Nor am I alone in that. As long as I can speak I can think. Words are the threads which hold me together. Don’t let me lose them. Don’t let me lose everything. The House will unravel around me.’