Mad Miss Mimic

by Sarah Henstra

  Tom’s eyes widened. “I am sorry for your suffering. I didn’t know—”

  I leapt to my feet. “I did not tell the countess to come to your aid. I was ignorant of all of it! I told her to take those awful jewels away from me. That is all. You needn’t thank me as though I’ve been lounging about at Kew and tossing alms in your direction!”

  The bell chimed; I saw Mr. Fitzhugh hastily exiting the store. I’d spoken quite shrilly—I’d been shouting, almost. Well, it was too late to stop now. I turned again on Tom, and the remembered horror of his death struck through me again, stoking my outrage. “I grieved you.” I gasped, and said it again: “I grieved you!”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Would you be sorry at all if I did go to France with Christa and Daniel? Would you grieve me?” My face flamed. Even as I spoke them I could hear how childish and undignified the words were. I sound like my sister, I thought, dismayed: my voice, but Christabel’s sort-of words.

  Tom sat down, leaving me standing before him. He folded his hands in his lap and looked at them. “The Lady Hastings informed me of your new circumstances, your allowance. You have a future. You won’t have time for a … dalliance with someone like me.”

  “A ‘dalliance,’ Mr. Rampling? Is that what you believe it was?” Shrill.

  He frowned. “That is not what I—”

  “Would you grieve me?” I insisted.

  “Oh, Miss Luck.” He sighed. There was a long pause. My heart thumped in my ears, syncopating with the hectic chorus of the clocks, so that I wondered if I would even hear him when he did continue. He kept his eyes on his folded hands.

  When he spoke again, it was barely a breath. “I began to grieve you from the first moment we ever spoke. In the parlour at Hastings, that day you fetched me for Hattie. Do you remember? We spoke, and I … I smudged your face with my filthy hand, and I loved you at once.”

  It was barely a thread of sound, but I heard it like a shout: I loved you.

  He looked up at me. “I loved you. But I knew from the beginning that I could never have you.”

  I started to protest, but he held up his hand to stop me. “My story runs a different course than yours. It began differently—I should say it was written in a different language, even.”

  “We can rewrite it,” I whispered.

  A wan grin. He shook his head. “We added a chapter, perhaps. But no. We cannot rewrite our stories. I should not wish to.”

  I was silent.

  “So do you see, Leo? I grieved you too. Right from the beginning, I grieved as I loved, all along.”

  I did see. I swallowed my tears before they could stab at my eyes. I offered him my hand. I made him a curtsy when he took my hand, and then I said, “Goodbye, Mr. Rampling.”

  “Goodbye, Miss Somerville,” he replied, and smiled at me, and bowed.

  I turned and walked a straight, steady line out of the watchmaker’s shop.

  Aunt Emma always likes to say that the story makes the character. If offstage you learn your character’s story by heart, then onstage you can become her. “Your story,” she says, “determines who you are.” Tom had spoken in the past tense when he said he loved and grieved, as though he were telling of an age gone by, of a previous lifetime. To him our story was already told and concluded.

  He had closed the book.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Ifound the countess in the alehouse’s leafy back garden sitting at a filigreed iron table spread with plates of fruit, buttered rolls, and cold ham. I took the chair opposite hers and busied myself with sugaring my tea.

  She reached across and touched my cheek. “I hope you know I did not do it for a joke,” she said.

  “The music box errand?” I said, and frowned. I had forgotten the box on the counter at Fitzhugh’s. It was just as well, I decided. If I couldn’t bear the memento when I believed Tom dead, I could only imagine how unbearable it would be now that I knew he lived, yet didn’t care for me.

  “No, not the errand,” Aunt Emmaline said, “though I did want to shield you from the strain of nervous anticipation. No, I meant withholding my knowledge of Mr. Rampling’s fate. You must understand that I needed to know the boy first. We needed to see his name cleared, of course—but then I also needed to judge his character.”

  “And shall you pronounce your verdict?” I was speaking in a strange, flat voice; I couldn’t place it in my memory.

  Her brows lifted. “Do you feel I’ve meddled in your affairs?”

  I stirred my tea. “I have no affairs. I’ve been asleep for months. Longer. I’ve been asleep my whole life, when I come to think about it.”

  My aunt tried to take my hand and sighed when I pulled away. “Leonora, really, you are much too hard on yourself,” she said.

  “And now that I’ve awakened at last it appears I am made of solid gold, like Midas’s daughter, and am therefore untouchable.”

  “Midas’s niece, you mean.” Aunt Emma’s lips pressed together. “You do feel I’ve meddled.”

  I sighed, suddenly ashamed of my ingratitude. “No. You took care of me, and you cared for Mr. Rampling, too. You called Daniel to task, and it saved Tom’s life.”

  “Thomas Rampling is truly a remarkable young man. He was positively eloquent in Parliament, you know, when they asked him to testify in the opium ban debates. He warned them how addictive and dangerous the new alkaloids of morphine can be.”

  “Did the ban pass, then?”

  She shook her head. “Other witnesses spoke too—doctors and importers mostly—and they convinced the House it would be altogether too costly and difficult to enforce a ban.”

  “Lord Rosbury’s new ship was designed to be secretly stuffed with opium,” I told her, and despite everything my chest warmed with sudden pride at Tom’s valour in destroying the Heroine under her captain’s nose.

  My aunt echoed my thoughts. “At least Mr. Rampling’s actions curbed the supply.”

  But Tom Rampling, I remembered, wanted nothing more to do with me. “Isn’t it more likely he’s driven up the prices at auction?” I said. “In the end he’s probably made men like Rosbury all the richer.”

  “Not Rosbury himself, though.” An amused note crept into Aunt Emma’s voice. “It turns out your Mr. Rampling was the one who told the police to search the pockets of that coat for the Black Glove’s notepaper. If Francis Thornfax was ever really in the running for your affections, my dear, I’m afraid he is quite out of the race now.”

  Her joking nauseated me. I lurched to my feet, gripping the table as the blood rushed from my head.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?” She began to rise, too, but I held up a hand to make her sit.

  What was the matter? I could have married Mr. Thornfax, I told my aunt. I was fooled and flattered. I had enjoyed his company and his attention, and I had especially enjoyed the sense of power I’d won at his side, my sense that on the Lord Rosbury’s arm I could have anything I wanted. And because of my enjoyment I became part of his crimes. Because I stood by I was partly to blame.

  And now? Now, I told Aunt Emmaline, the world seemed a smaller, meaner place than before. Robbing Mr. Thornfax of his prized ship, forcing him to run away— these small triumphs would never make up for the lives lost to his murderous schemes. I knew that Tom Rampling would carry young Will’s death with him, and Daisy’s, and poor Hattie’s, for as long as he lived. I knew he would blame himself for bringing those victims to Mr. Thornfax and to my brother-in-law. And he would blame me for being blind, for standing by. He did blame me. And I blamed myself.

  “Well, that makes an unhappy ending, then,” Aunt Emma commented, when I had finished.

  I sat down. There was nothing else to say. We ate in silence; I picked at my food and washed each bite down with tea.

  Finally my aunt put down her fork. She touched her serviette to her mouth. “Did Mr. Rampling tell you that he blames you?”

  “Of course not. He told me that I have money, and that our stories are d
ifferent and cannot be rewritten.”

  She snorted. “And you believed him?”

  I hesitated. “He said he would not wish to rewrite them.”

  “He would not wish to rewrite yours.” Aunt Emma clucked her tongue. “Ever the gallant knight, isn’t he? Do you know what I had to say to persuade him to accept the money from Rosbury’s jewels?”

  “You told him I wanted him to have it.”

  “Well—yes, I did.” She ducked her head, and I couldn’t help but smile at her shamefaced expression. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I wounded his pride, I’m afraid.”

  “His pride,” I repeated. Tom Rampling wasn’t proud. Was he?

  “Did you make him a speech, at least?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It was Mr. Rampling’s duty to release you from any tie to him, and it sounds like he performed his duty admirably.”

  “Very admirably.” I could hear the bitterness in my voice.

  “But you did not do your duty. No”—she held up a finger to stop me from interrupting—“I don’t mean your duty to him, or to me, or to anyone else. I mean your duty to yourself. You did not make him a speech.”

  “What sort of speech?” Bitterness gave way to impatience now.

  She folded her hands in her lap and narrowed her eyes. “You say you want to be an actress. I’m sure you can think of something. Now go on, before you develop stage fright!”

  So I walked back to the watchmaker’s shop. Mr. Fitzhugh brushed aside my apologies and told me I’d find Tom out the back door, in the mews.

  Tom was sitting hatless on the curb, elbows on his knees, watching a groomsman down the way roll a hoop to his small son and daughter. I sat myself down beside him, and he jumped and turned his head. My apology for startling him died in my throat when I saw that his eyes were raw with tears.

  Hope sped my pulse at the sight. “You’re weeping,” I said.

  He braced himself to get up, but I seized his wrist and held it. I watched his nostrils flare as his face struggled for composure, as he tried to mask all sign of the emotion I’d glimpsed, to recover his dignity. To recover his pride, I thought, realizing my aunt was right. I released his arm, suddenly regretting my thoughtless intrusion.

  But Tom stayed seated beside me. “Grieving,” he admitted, with a wry shrug. “As I said before.”

  Grieving—as you love? I wanted to ask. If only he would tell me how he felt! But I had a speech to make him, I remembered, and I wrapped my arms round my knees, wondering how to begin.

  “You said goodbye to me,” he reminded me.

  “I retract it,” I answered. “I am not going to France.” An inelegant beginning for a speech, but now I’d started I didn’t want to lose momentum: “I want to study to be an actress. I am going to take acting lessons. For the stage,” I added, as he stared blankly at me.

  I cleared my throat and tried again. “You said I had a future, thanks to my aunt’s money. Well, you have a future, too, now: an apprenticeship, a fine living, the patronage of the Lady Hastings. Very soon you will likely meet a nice girl and marry her and have a houseful of beautiful little children.” What on earth was I talking about? This was a dreadful speech. I felt slightly hysterical. “But in the meantime I shall be in London, and I won’t be living at Hastings House or attending balls or taking gentlemen’s cards. I shall be learning to be an actress, and I’ll come to visit you often in the shop—I shall bring you watches and things to fix, if I have to—because I can’t bear not to see you.” Here my voice cracked, and I gulped back a panicky sob. I’d lost the theme of my speech entirely.

  “Leo,” he said softly.

  “My story already has you in it, Tom Rampling!”

  “Leo.”

  “It’s too late to switch to another chapter. You’re already a character—you’re the hero, in fact.”

  “Leo, I don’t—”

  “You’re the hero!” I yelped.

  Tom reached over and covered my mouth with his palm. “You’ve lost your stammer,” he said, as if he’d only just noticed. “Is your Mimic at your service, then?”

  I nodded. My tears flowed freely over his hand.

  When he released me he swiped his thumb across my cheekbone and then put the thumb to his lips to lick the tears from it. The intimate, unthinking gesture produced another hot flicker of hope within me. But Tom frowned. “You deserve more than a common lockpicking criminal.”

  I sniffled. “Well now, I’d hardly call you common. You single-handedly destroyed half the merchant ships in Britain.”

  A startled chuckle escaped him.

  “I’ve had my fill of lords, Tom,” I said. “I’ll take my chances on a lockpick.”

  He shook his head and started to look sad again, but I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. Tom held rigid at first, resisting me, but after a moment his hands came up to tangle in my hair, and he pulled me against him, returning my kiss, multiplying it. His mouth was warm, the scent of his breath sweetly familiar. I felt as if I was drawing life from him, filling and unfurling, as if Tom were strong sunlight and I a spring leaf.

  He bent his head to rest his forehead against mine. “Miss Luck.” He sighed. “I dreamt and dreamt of this but I never dared to hope.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I never dared—”

  “No, the name.” I touched his chiselled cheekbone, his temple where his pulse beat just under the pale skin.

  “Miss Luck?” He kissed me, and his voice broke lower. “I can hardly say it enough. You are fortune and favour”— another, deeper kiss—“and rapture and bliss. I shall have to take you in small doses or be overcome.” He bent to kiss the spot where my neck met my new-healed collarbone.

  The unexpected caress in such a vulnerable place made me stiffen and then heat all over with pleasure. “Am I your remedy, then?” I joked.

  “You are my remedy,” Tom replied, but it was a whisper, solemn as a vow. He felt me shiver and gathered me, gently and protectively, into his arms.

  “And what of the Lady Hastings?” he said, into my hair. “After everything she has done for me I wouldn’t dare to disappoint her.”

  “The Lady Hastings grew impatient with the wait,” came Aunt Emma’s voice behind us.

  We scrambled apart. She was standing in the doorway with Mr. Fitzhugh, who was leaning comfortably against the frame, arms crossed, as though they’d both been there some minutes already.

  “Do lift my niece from the pavings, would you? She’s been quite ill, you know. Though judging from her colour at the moment”—she peered into my flushed face as Tom hurried to assist me—“I would say she is well on her way to recovery.”

  Aunt Emma tucked my arm through her own and led us back into the shop. I blinked in the room’s dimness after the bright mews.

  The four of us stood amid the clocks’ chatter, waiting for one another to speak.

  “I swear to you, Lady Hastings,” Tom said, at last. “I will strive my whole life to become worthy of her.”

  Mr. Fitzhugh coughed, and Aunt Emma arched an eyebrow. “It seems your apprentice shall beat my niece to the stage, Declan,” she said.

  “Weel now, yon lad’s not typically given to dramatics,” the watchmaker told her. He took off his glasses and wiped them, with exaggerated motions, on his shirt. Then he put them back on and peered at Tom in mock concern. “I wonder what ails him.”

  “Give him strong tea when we are gone,” said my aunt.

  “Oh, won’t you have mercy?” I protested. “He doesn’t know, yet, how you tease!”

  “Forgive me,” she said, utterly unapologetic. “Mr. Rampling, let us not speak of our whole lives. Let us speak only of today. And of Thursday, when I hope you will have finished repairing Leonora’s music box, and you and Mr. Fitzhugh might come to dine with us in Gordon Square, in order to deliver it.”

  Tom took Aunt Emmaline’s outstretched hand. “It would be my pleasure, Countess,” he managed.

  “Please come ev
en if it’s not repaired,” I added, to make sure there was no misunderstanding.

  “Order a fortifyin’ supper,” Mr. Fitzhugh suggested. “These younglings need meat ta their bones. Too much faintin’ an swoonin’, elsewise.”

  Suddenly every timepiece in the shop began to strike five o’clock, an explosion of sound that made Aunt Emma gasp and clutch Mr. Fitzhugh’s arm while the rest of us laughed. I looked at Tom—his warm, smiling mouth, his grey eyes incredulous with happiness—and I knew he heard in the din what I heard too. It was the whole world chiming us a new hour, a new era. A new beginning.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Mad Miss Mimic is a work of fiction grounded in historical fact. While I invented the particulars of Leo’s story, I tried to be as accurate as possible about life in 1870s London for an upper-class girl. But in this novel I also wanted to take Leo places a “typical” Victorian heiress would never go, so I spent countless hours in libraries and archives researching the history of speech disorders, medical practices, opiate addiction, clipper ships, explosives, and criminal underworlds. Luckily libraries and archives just happen to be some of my favourite places in the world!

  DEADLY MEDICINES: OPIUM, MORPHINE, HEROIN

  In the nineteenth century, opium was perfectly legal and freely available at apothecaries’ and chemists’ shops. The liquid tincture favoured by Leo’s sister, Christabel, called laudanum, was sold under such popular names as Godfrey’s Cordial and Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup as a remedy for everything from ladies’ headaches to babies’ teething pains. Morphine and codeine were isolated from the opium molecule in 1805. The hypodermic syringe came along in 1853, and over the next decades doctors began to inject their patients with morphine for faster, more dramatic pain relief. If you had money you could buy your own syringes, and morphia addiction, commonly called morphomania, spread like a plague among the middle and upper classes in the late 1800s.