by Caleb Krisp
In fact, I didn’t get much farther than the ballroom’s carved oak doors. For it was here that I came upon Matilda and her mother having a rather heated discussion. About the sort of entrance Matilda wished to make at the ball. Namely, that she wanted to be carried in on a gilded throne.
“That seems rather excessive, darling,” said Lady Amelia meekly.
“Excessive?” Matilda stomped her foot. “I’m to inherit this great pile when Grandmother kicks the bucket. Don’t I deserve a little respect?”
“Of course you do, my sweet.” Lady Amelia began to fan herself manically. “But I fear that Lady Elizabeth might object if you are carried in by eight footmen.”
Matilda folded her arms. “Doesn’t she want me to feel special?”
“Aren’t entrances marvelous things?” I said, butting in helpfully. “I once saw Queen Victoria arrive for morning tea on the back of twelve eagles—smashing stuff.” I smiled at Matilda. “But perhaps Lady Elizabeth would prefer you didn’t enter the ballroom like an Egyptian princess riding her slaves.”
“Who asked you?” snarled Matilda.
Before I could answer, Lady Elizabeth’s voice came bellowing down the hallway. “Where is my blasted daughter-in-law?” she thundered. “Lady Amelia, come and rub my bunions, you indolent woman!”
I saw Lady Amelia’s petite nostrils flare. Just slightly. The smallest flash of irritation shadowing her round face. Then she groaned wearily. “Coming, Lady Elizabeth!”
“Lady Amelia,” I said, “I’m not one to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“Liar,” snapped Matilda.
“But you really should stand up to Lady Elizabeth. Show her you won’t be pushed around.” I patted her fleshy arm. “The old bat will thank you for it.”
“No, she won’t,” said Matilda with a grin.
“You really think so, Esmeralda?” said Lady Amelia meekly.
“Why ever not?” I asked. “The only way to defeat a bully is to bash them senseless.”
“Oh, my,” whispered Lady Amelia. “What a thought!”
Lady Elizabeth bellowed again, and her daughter-in-law took off down the hall like a puppy. As she departed, I felt Matilda glaring at me with terrific interest. Studying my face as if it were a wall hanging. I prayed she had not recognized me.
“You’re the ugliest girl I ever saw, Cabbage,” she declared at last. “Are you really related to the King of Spain?”
“Most certainly,” I said. “We’re violently close. Practically sisters.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Matilda. “But as all of my friends hate me, I suppose you’ll have to do.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m practically positive I’ll end up hating you too.”
Matilda frowned. “You remind me of someone.”
“I’m sure she was glorious. And violently misunderstood.”
“She was unhinged.” Matilda glanced in at the ballroom. “Do you know why we haven’t had a party in this house for ten whole months, Cabbage?”
I nodded. “It was in all the papers—about your cousin Rebecca’s sudden death.”
Matilda undid and retied the ribbon in her hair, her hazel eyes sparkling. “She shriveled up right before our eyes and died. At least, I think she did.”
“You’re not sure?” I said gently.
“Of course I am.” Matilda glared at me again. “Follow me, Cabbage. I want to show you something completely bonkers.”
Matilda unlocked the door and ushered me inside. It was just as I remembered, yet it still made me gasp. A neat bedroom with a pretty brass bed—and a wonderland of clocks. They crowded the walls and the floor, the tables and drawers and cabinets. Brass clocks, silver ones, cuckoos and carriage clocks. Each timepiece ticking as one, like the heartbeat of this abandoned bedroom.
“Are you shocked, Cabbage?” said Matilda.
I wasn’t shocked. I was sad. Horribly sad. Thinking of how my friend was suffering in Prospa House. A place without hope, that’s what she had told me. I didn’t know all the grisly details, but her life as a remedy was beastly—curing those in Prospa dying of the Shadow and, with each healing, fading a little more until there would be nothing left of her.
“Whose room is this?” I asked.
“My cousin’s,” said Matilda.
“And the clocks?”
“Some foolishness about her mother.” Matilda wandered between the clocks toward the window. “But then, this is a strange house. Things happen here.”
“How thrilling!” I cleared my throat. “Such as?”
“I’m not really sure.” She gazed out at the parkland below. “But I have my suspicions.”
I had wondered whether Matilda was in on the wicked scheme involving Anastasia. After all, hadn’t she conspired with her grandmother to trap me at Lashwood? The girl was certainly capable of skulduggery. Yet she seemed to be as mystified as I was about the goings-on at Butterfield Park.
“Grandmother hated the clocks,” said Matilda. “Yet after my cousin died, she ordered this room to be locked up like a vault.” She walked back toward me. “Everything is just as my cousin left it.”
Except that wasn’t completely true. The last time I had been in Rebecca’s room, after the awful events of the birthday ball, the clocks had been knocked over and scattered about. And that wasn’t all. The timepieces had no longer ticked as one—they had been horribly out of sync. Yet now all of the clocks had been put to rights, just as Rebecca kept them, and they ticked with a single beat. Which begged an interesting question. “Someone is keeping the clocks ticking,” I said. “Is it you, dear?”
Matilda reached out and touched a gold carriage clock on the table beside her, her pretty face etched with melancholy. It only lasted a second. Then it was gone. “Don’t be stupid, Cabbage.” She turned and stomped out of the room. “I’m bored, let’s go.”
When Matilda tired of my delightful company shortly after lunch—muttering something about me being too nosy for my own good—I returned to the ballroom. It was unlocked and wonderfully deserted. I slipped in and closed the door behind me. A long banqueting table ran down the middle of the room. I walked around it, making a beeline for the wall of mirrored panels. Each mirror was surrounded by a gilded frame, and between every third panel was a candelabra wrapped in gold ivy.
I started at one end and moved down, pushing and poking each panel, looking for any sign of a secret door. Or a handle. It wasn’t a great success. The glass did not budge. There was no sign of a concealed entrance. But not willing to give up, I walked quickly back to the first panel and started again.
“Miss Cabbage?”
I jumped, startled. Lady Elizabeth was standing at the far end of the banqueting table. Which was rather odd, as I was just a few feet from the ballroom door—it was still closed. And I would surely have heard her come in.
“What are you doing in here, Miss Cabbage?” she said next.
“I was just admiring your glorious ballroom. But I must ask, Lady Elizabeth—how did you get in here?”
“Well, I didn’t fly in on my broomstick, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she barked.
“Of course you didn’t,” I said, moving toward her. “I never imagined for a moment that you were the sort of witch that used a broom.”
She huffed. “Is that what passes for flattery in India these days?”
“Oh, yes. It’s all the rage.” I stopped a few feet from old Walnut Head. “I’m still rather puzzled about how you got in here—I was standing right by the door.”
It made my blood boil to think that Anastasia was somewhere close. I was tempted to call out her name and pound on the mirrors. But if I did, the game would be up—and I might never secure that poor woman’s freedom.
“Puzzled, are you?” said Lady Elizabeth. “Well, don’t trouble yourself, Miss Cabbage. I was here long before you entered the room.”
“But I did not see you.”
“Then I sugge
st you consult a physician.” Then she pointed with her cane. “I was over there, inspecting the rostrum. Tomorrow night there will be a full orchestra playing for my guests.”
It was true there was a stage at the far end of the room, but I would surely have noticed if Lady Elizabeth had been up there. She didn’t fool me for a moment. The ballroom had been empty when I walked in. Which could only mean one thing. And Lady Elizabeth knew it.
“Do you imagine,” she said softly, “that I have some secret way of popping in and out of this ballroom?” Her beady eyes, lost in the folds of her wrinkly flesh, seemed to gaze into my very soul. “Is that what you think, Miss Cabbage?”
“Heavens no.” If this were a game of chess, I would have to move my next piece most carefully. “Though if you did have a secret entrance, where do you suppose it might be? If you don’t wish to say it aloud—for fear of your life and whatnot—just point with your stick or shake some of the dust from your hair and carve an arrow into it, showing the way.”
“Dust from my what?” Lady Elizabeth cupped her ear and huffed again. “Gibberish, that’s what you talk!”
The old bat was getting rather testy, so I felt it best to make a hasty retreat. I would return for another look around the ballroom at the next opportunity. As I turned to depart, I glanced out the window and noticed something odd. Someone odd, to be more exact. A woman. She was dressed in black, a veil covering her face. And she stood at the mouth of the woodlands, facing Butterfield Park. Perhaps she was a ghost. I’d seen Rebecca’s mother haunting that same woodland on my last visit. So it was something of a shock when Lady Elizabeth fell in beside me and said, “Who the blazes is that?”
“I haven’t a clue.” And between the time it took for me to glance at Lady Elizabeth and then back at the window, the veiled woman had vanished. “But it’s frightfully interesting, don’t you think?”
“Claptrap! What are you up to, Miss Cabbage? Why were you lurking about my ballroom as if you were looking for something?”
“I could ask you the same question, Lizzy.”
“Wretched girl!” she thundered. “My name is Lady Elizabeth.”
“Of course it is, you poor, delirious fossil.” I spoke loudly, as one does to a halfwit with poor hearing. “And this is Butterfield Park—your home.” I began nudging her toward the door. “What about some fresh air? It might clear the cobwebs from your mind. Though I think it would be wise if I tethered you to a tree—so you don’t wander off and fall in a hole.”
“Poke me again,” she said, raising her cane to my throat, “and I will have your head, Miss Cabbage.”
And I could tell she meant it. But at least I had succeeded in derailing her interrogation. The last thing I wanted was for Lady Elizabeth to realize I was on to her.
I made a dignified exit—offering a cheery wave and then cartwheeling out the door (which felt like something Esmeralda Cabbage would do). Then I set off to find Bertha, eager to share what I had learned. Lady Elizabeth’s sudden appearance in the ballroom confirmed my deepest suspicions. There was a secret doorway somewhere in that room. The only question—Where?
10
No one visited the ballroom that night. I kept watch, peering through the keyhole of the library door (the two rooms were opposite each other). As the hours ticked by, I took a risk and decided to enter the grand chamber myself, hoping to discover that elusive hidden door. I was relieved to find the ballroom unlocked—how wondrously convenient! I searched the vast chamber, without success, until I heard the servants waking up and moving about the house. Defeated, I returned to my bedroom chamber for a few hours’ sleep.
Bertha woke me in a great state of excitement. The ball was that very night, and the house was teeming with activity. I sat before the dressing table, listening to her babble about all the details, as I carefully put on my face.
“I sneaked a peek at the ballroom,” she said eagerly, picking up my wig and running a brush through it. “And what a sight! I’ve never seen such splendor. Though the kitchen’s in an awful panic—the cheese never arrived, and they’ve had to send for another lot.”
A note had come by the early morning post. It was from Mr. Partridge. He asked how I was enjoying Butterfield Park and reported that as yet he had been unable to locate Anastasia’s missing child. He wondered if perhaps McCloud had put the infant into an orphanage—and said that he would start making enquiries. But that was unlikely. Hadn’t Baron Dumbleby told me that McCloud had always wanted a child of her own? Why then would she give it up?
“Miss Estelle was up early this morning, taking a stroll,” said Bertha. “She gave me such a look. She hates me, she does.”
The poor lump had followed Estelle for much of yesterday, but had come back with nothing of interest to report, apart from the fact that the awful girl spent much of the day lazing about the conservatory. I twisted my braid into a tight bun and pinned it. “I wouldn’t worry, dear. Estelle has more on her devious mind than you.”
“She has a black heart.” Bertha slipped the wig over my hair and made a few adjustments. “There, miss, all done.”
Esmeralda Cabbage looked back at me in the mirror. But for once my reflection didn’t fill me with hope. For the day of the ball was here. I had been thoroughly convinced I would find Anastasia within hours of reaching Butterfield Park. But I had failed. Nor was I completely certain about my ingenious plan to reach Rebecca. Time was fast running out.
“What’s wrong, miss?” said Bertha uneasily. “You look awful serious.”
I stood up. Paced around the room like a prisoner awaiting sentence. “Bertha, I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
The maid sat down on the bed and gulped. “Yes, miss?”
“If we do not find Anastasia by the end of the ball tonight, I fear we never will.” I stopped in front of the quivering maid. “But if we do find her, and we must, it’s very important that you follow my instructions.”
“But why must it be tonight? We are to stay on at Butterfield Park for another two days.”
“I will not be here beyond tonight,” I said. “At least, I hope not.”
Bertha jumped like a startled bunny. “What do you mean, miss?”
“Only this. I have a plan that I hope will take me to Prospa without the stone’s help. Tonight is the only night it can happen.”
“I don’t understand,” said Bertha, beginning to sob.
“Bertha, listen to me,” I said gently. “I must go to help a friend who needs me even more than Anastasia.”
“You mean Rebecca?”
I nodded, my thoughts flying to the mysterious veiled figure I had seen looking at Butterfield Park from the woodlands. “I have a plan. As yet the pieces are not in place, but I have high hopes.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out an envelope, handing it to Bertha. “There is money inside and an address in Weymouth. When I find the secret door, we must get Anastasia away from this house—tonight. Take her to that address. Take her there and keep her safe.”
Bertha’s hands were trembling as she took the envelope. “Isn’t Weymouth the very place you ran away from?”
“That’s right. It is the very same cottage by the sea.”
I could see the fear blooming in Bertha’s eyes. “And didn’t you say Miss Always went to that house looking for you—and that she took your friend Jago as her hostage?”
“Yes.”
“What if Miss Always comes back?” she cried. “You said she’s awful dangerous.”
“Miss Always wouldn’t think I’d be stupid enough to go back to Weymouth.” I smiled triumphantly. “She doesn’t know me at all. So, will you do as I have asked?”
“I will,” said Bertha, hugging her arms. “But I’m awful scared, miss.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” I replied brightly.
Though I couldn’t deny the shiver creeping through my bones.
Esmeralda Cabbage wore a peach-colored dress made of silk. Her flaxen hair hung loose around her shoulders, fixed w
ith an auburn ribbon. And her face, held in place by a little glue, had the noble glow of a piglet. She would fit right in among three hundred aristocrats.
The ballroom was as glorious as Bertha had described. The vast room glowed like a jewel beneath the eight chandeliers, each one flickering with a hundred candles. The windows were now covered by the red velvet curtain, which shimmered in the soft light. As I entered the room, the orchestra was playing a waltz, and already a great many guests were dancing about. There were lords and ladies as far as the eye could see. With dukes in tails and top hats and duchesses sparkling with embroidered gowns of brocade silk, feathered hats of every shape and size, and frills and flounces everywhere you looked.
Servants milled about in starched uniforms, filling empty glasses, pulling out chairs, and anticipating the guests’ every whim. The banqueting table was a triumph, running down the middle of the ballroom—it was decorated with fresh orchids and candelabras and laden with silver trays teeming with sweetmeats and potatoes, fish, crab and lobster, and every kind of game. There were puddings and tarts and cakes in a rainbow of colors. And the centerpiece of the table was an enormous red-and-blue jelly at least ten feet long—a wonderfully wobbly replica of Butterfield House itself, with the words ONE HUNDRED YEARS carved into the top.
I ventured over to the windows, parted the curtains, and took a peek outside. And noted with a rush of excitement the half-moon etched into the sky, throwing pale light over the park.
“You look lovely, Esmeralda.”
It was Lady Amelia. She looked like a pound of butter squeezed into a sparkling red sock. “Thank you, Lady Amelia. So do you.”
She giggled. Then took a large gulp of her wine. “I’ve never seen the house so full—Lady Elizabeth will be most pleased.”
“I can’t think why,” snapped Matilda. “It’s utterly boring, that’s what it is.”
Across the ballroom I saw Estelle Dumbleby make her grand entrance. She didn’t look even slightly wicked in a blue-and-white dress, a stunning ruby necklace at her throat. She immediately caught the eye of Lady Elizabeth, who was standing beside Countess Carbunkle (who wore a hat positively bursting with peacock feathers). The three of them huddled together and talked for some time.