The Locket of Dreams

by Belinda Murrell

  They sat down together to enjoy their illicit late-night feast, with Marmalade sitting between them, delicately accepting offerings of shredded chicken and ham. Flossie noisily chewed the lamb bone under the table and licked her mistresses’ bare hands.

  ‘This is really good,’ said Nell, licking crumbs from her top lip. ‘I have not had Cook’s fruitcake for so long.’

  Charlotte’s heart filled with gladness. Nell had hardly spoken since their father’s death. It was good to see a small spark of the old Nell back.

  Sophie risked stealing a titbit of fruitcake to taste it. She wondered how it would look to the girls, a crumbly morsel flying through the air. Will it disappear when I swallow it, or will they see it still floating there in midair in my tummy? Sophie thought.

  The fruitcake was completely tasteless to Sophie; it was very disappointing. It looked so good. The girls did not seem to notice the flying crumb.

  ‘I am sure Cook would not mind us helping ourselves to food,’ added Charlotte. ‘She did tell us to come down to the kitchen if ever we were hungry. More ham, puss?’

  ‘Miaow,’ agreed Marmalade, uncurling her pink tongue.

  They had seconds of everything, then sat back feeling replete and happier. Charlotte rubbed her feet on Flossie’s shaggy back. Flossie shivered with happiness.

  ‘I suppose we should clean up, take Flossie back to the kennels then climb back up to bed,’ Charlotte suggested with a sigh. Nell nodded and they set to work packing away the food.

  In a few minutes, Flossie was returned to her kennel, whining piteously, and Charlotte and Nell had climbed back up the oak tree to their bedroom window. Sophie watched the girls climb in the window, then scooted up through the sky, back to her own bed.

  Charlotte and Nell were sitting in the schoolroom, their heads nodding over their workbooks, when a ruckus sounded below in the stable yard, with dogs barking and grooms calling.

  Charlotte and Nell ran to the window, Sophie floating right behind them. Roddy ignored them, digging the top of the desk with his penknife. The family carriage had pulled up and a tall, thin middle-aged woman dressed in black disembarked.

  ‘Who could it be?’ wondered Charlotte. ‘She looks like a crow.’

  Nell giggled. ‘And look at that hat! It looks like the nest on top of the bird. I wonder if there are any chicks in there?’

  Charlotte chuckled in turn, her face alight.

  Sophie giggled too. The woman had an enormous black bonnet perched upon a riot of tightly curled mousy-brown ringlets.

  Then both sisters stopped smiling. At the same time they realised that it was the first joke they had shared together in ages, which reminded them of why they didn’t share jokes any more, and both felt immediately enveloped by a thick fug of misery. Listlessly they turned from the window and returned to the school table.

  Aunt Arabella shortly entered, followed by the unknown woman.

  ‘Ah, Charlotte, Eleanor and darling Roddy,’ Aunt Arabella gushed, ‘I would like to introduce you to your new governess, Miss Crowe.’

  On closer inspection, Miss Crowe bore an even greater similarity to her namesake, with a sharp beaky nose and small beady eyes. Charlotte and Nell glanced at each other, their eyes alight with mischief and their lips twitching.

  It was hard to repress the giggle that came bubbling up their throats completely uninvited. Charlotte coughed and stepped forward with a curtsey.

  Sophie could only think of the crows in Australia, which could peck out the eyes of young lambs. A shiver ran up her spine. Sophie did not like this woman at all.

  ‘Good morning, Master Roddy, Miss Charlotte, Miss Eleanor,’ squeaked Miss Crowe, clutching her umbrella rather fiercely. ‘I pray we shall get on famously.’

  ‘Good morning, Miss Crowe,’ Charlotte and Nell chorused. Roddy nodded rather sullenly after a prod from his mother.

  ‘Now, Miss Crowe is my second cousin, and she has kindly agreed to teach you girls needlework, pianoforte, dancing, posture and, most of all, decorum,’ Aunt Arabella explained.

  Charlotte and Nell glanced at each other in consternation. Decorum?

  ‘Miss Crowe will oversee Roddy’s education until his tutor arrives,’ Aunt Arabella continued. ‘My darling, your papa has engaged one of the best tutors in England to supervise your studies until you go away to school.’

  Roddy smirked at his cousins, then pulled a face when his mother turned away.

  ‘But Aunt Arabella!’ Charlotte exclaimed. ‘What about the rest of our studies – French and German, botany, mathematics, composition? Mama –’

  ‘Your uncle and I have decided that such studies are quite unnecessary for young ladies,’ interrupted Aunt Arabella. ‘Your education should provide you with the accomplishments to attract a suitable offer of marriage.’

  Aunt Arabella glanced fondly at her son Roddy, who was picking some dirt from his fingernails.

  Charlotte glared at them both in horror.

  ‘But I loathe needlework,’ Charlotte protested. ‘And I do not want to get married.’

  ‘Charlotte, that is enough,’ rebuked Aunt Arabella. ‘You must learn to hold your tongue. Miss Crowe, you understand that your most compelling duty is to train my nieces to behave in a fitting manner, to beat them into submission if need be. My husband and I do not believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child, as my poor sister-in-law unfortunately did. They must be taught to behave.’

  Miss Crowe clutched her umbrella even tighter. Charlotte flushed with rage and mortification. Nell stood with her head hanging, her spirit crushed.

  ‘Now, children,’ Aunt Arabella said and smiled sweetly, ‘I will leave you to get acquainted with Miss Crowe. Perhaps needlework would be a good place to start? You may have the rest of the morning off, Roddy. Perhaps you would like to go riding with the stableboy?’

  Aunt Arabella bustled off, followed by a gleeful Roddy, who pinched Nell hard on the shoulder as he strolled by. Sophie pushed a chair in front of Roddy as he passed, causing him to trip.

  ‘How did that get there?’ blustered Roddy to his mother as he followed her out the door. ‘That chair was not there a moment ago.’

  ‘Let us get started with embroidery,’ trilled Miss Crow. ‘I thought a sampler would be suitable, so you can practise your alphabet and numbers.’

  Charlotte gazed at Nell in despair. Obediently they went to fetch their needles, thimbles, embroidery silk and material, and then they sat and sewed and sewed while the clock on the schoolroom mantelpiece crawled slowly around.

  Sophie felt her eyes burning with tiredness. She yawned widely, then pinched herself to stay awake. She decided to slip through the wall and fly down to the stables to visit the horses and Flossie. That would be much more interesting than sitting here watching the girls do their embroidery.

  Finally the girls were released from their needlework. They listlessly picked at their cold, stodgy rice pudding, and were sent down to say goodnight to their aunt and uncle.

  Sophie followed them closely, swooping over the staircase banister and free-falling down into the hallway below. Sophie felt totally at home now in her invisible, ghostly, floating self, and celebrated by scooting back up and around the chandelier, making the candle flames tremble, then plunging once more down to the floor below.

  In the sitting room, Aunt Arabella closely scrutinised the needlework they had completed that day, holding it close to the lamplight and sighing in dismay at Charlotte’s untidy stitches.

  ‘I trust you will work better tomorrow, Charlotte,’ Arabella scolded. ‘Now you girls may be excused to retire to your bedchamber. Roddy, you may stay down here for a while. Good evening, girls.’

  Aunt Arabella offered her cheek for a kiss. Charlotte and Nell said goodnight and silently climbed up the stairs to their bedroom, Sophie shimmering behind them.

  Charlotte opened the door to find Miss Crowe starting guiltily, bending over Charlotte’s bed. In her hands was Charlotte’s birthday box with the lid open an
d the contents strewn over the bedcover.

  There was the golden locket Eliza had given her, Nell’s gold bangle, Charlotte’s journal and the copy of her father’s poems of Robbie Burns. Miss Crowe hurriedly dropped the box on the bed.

  A scarlet rage swept through Charlotte like a wildfire.

  ‘How dare you touch my things!’ shouted Charlotte. ‘How dare you open my special box! It was locked. I will tell my uncle and you will be dismissed. How dare you?’

  Miss Crowe flushed guiltily.

  ‘Your – your aunt requested that – that I search your room,’ Miss Crowe stuttered. ‘Arabella told me that some valuable pieces of jewellery were missing and she thought you may have taken them to play with. I thought the box was an obvious place to keep jewels and found the key in your dresser.’

  ‘How dare she!’ shrieked Charlotte, sobbing now with rage and frustration.

  Nell came and tried to comfort her with a hug.

  ‘Charlotte, that is enough,’ admonished Aunt Arabella from the doorway. ‘Your behaviour is atrocious. I will not have you speaking to Miss Crowe in such a manner. Perhaps a caning will teach you some manners.’

  Aunt Arabella strode to the bed and sorted through the items scattered on the eiderdown. She picked up the bangle and the locket, and curled her fingers around them protectively.

  ‘These are too valuable for a child to have,’ she explained haughtily. ‘You will only lose them. I will keep them safe until you are older.’

  Arabella turned to Miss Crowe. ‘Any sign of the sapphire?’ Miss Crowe shook her head. ‘Did you look under the mattress and behind the shoes?’

  ‘I looked everywhere you suggested, Arabella, and there was no sign of it,’ Miss Crowe confirmed, carefully avoiding looking at Charlotte.

  Aunt Arabella snorted with displeasure. She grabbed Charlotte by the arm and squeezed her tightly.

  ‘Where is the Star of Serendib?’ Arabella said threateningly. ‘I know you have it hidden somewhere. Your mother’s maid said the ring was definitely in the jewel casket just before your mother died. Not even the threat of the constables could make her change her story. I am convinced you know where it is.’

  Charlotte flushed, then went pale, her thoughts churning with anger, fear and grief.

  ‘If my mother had given me the Star of Serendib,’ Charlotte finally replied, staring at her aunt with blazing eyes, ‘I would rather throw it into the loch than give it to you.’

  Aunt Arabella was speechless with fury. She released Charlotte’s arm and stalked to the door, her silken skirts crackling and swishing as if venting her anger. At the door, she turned and glared at the subdued group behind her.

  ‘Miss Crowe, I believe Miss Charlotte would benefit from a severe caning,’ Arabella ordered. ‘Perhaps that would improve her manners and her memory.’ Then she dangled the gold locket and bangle from her fingertips, watching them glitter and glow in the lamplight. ‘Meanwhile, I will go and find somewhere safe to keep these trinkets.’

  Miss Crowe nodded grimly and followed Arabella from the room. In a moment, Miss Crowe returned with a long, thin cane, which she bent experimentally between her hands.

  When she released the thin end, the cane whooshed through the air and vibrated menacingly. Charlotte swallowed fearfully. Miss Crowe turned the key in the lock behind her and pocketed the key.

  ‘I am sorry, Charlotte,’ Miss Crowe announced, looking not the least bit sorry at all. ‘Your aunt has asked me to punish you, which I am sure will hurt me a lot more than it will hurt you. Could you oblige me by holding out your hand? I think ten blows should be sufficient.’

  ‘Please, no!’ Nell cried, huddling closer to Charlotte.

  Charlotte hesitated and stepped back, her eyes flitting to the door and the window, but there was no escape there. Sophie fluttered anxiously up near the ceiling. She could not believe that Miss Crowe would actually hit Charlotte.

  ‘Come now, Charlotte,’ Miss Crowe admonished. ‘We do not have all evening, and it is better to co-operate now or it will be twenty blows, and a good deal harder than if you just held out your hand now.’

  Charlotte thought for a moment. There seemed no other option, so she held out her hand with the palm facing upwards. It trembled slightly. Charlotte bit the inside of her lip and waited for the blows.

  Nell caught Miss Crowe’s arm. ‘Please do not hit her,’ she begged.

  Miss Crowe pushed Nell away roughly.

  Sophie felt anger boiling up inside her. Charlotte and Nell had done nothing to deserve punishment.

  The cane swished up and down viciously, over and over again. The thin end of the cane bit into the soft flesh of Charlotte’s palm, her wrist, the sensitive tips of her fingers. Charlotte clenched her teeth and refused to cry.

  When the cane had swiped down three times, Miss Crowe paused, the cane raised above her shoulder. Charlotte’s palm was striped with ugly welts, oozing crimson blood. Nell was crying loudly. Sophie was itching to do something, anything, to stop this barbaric punishment.

  ‘Do you have anything to tell me about the Star of Serendib?’ Miss Crowe asked, raising her eyebrow.

  Charlotte shook her head vehemently. Miss Crowe tutted disbelievingly and resumed her thrashing with the cane, swishing down upon Charlotte’s hand with greater force.

  ‘No!’ shouted Nell, throwing herself in front of Miss Crowe’s arm, and the rapidly descending cane. ‘Please stop.’ The cane thrashed down on Nell’s shoulder and back, cutting her cruelly.

  Sophie rushed forward at the same moment, furious at the brutal beating that poor Charlotte and now Nell were receiving. Sophie knew that a strong emotion such as fear, grief or anger somehow made her ethereal presence in this past world more substantial.

  Sophie snatched the cane from Miss Crowe’s unsuspecting fist. She grasped both ends of the cane and snapped them together, splintering the cane.

  Three pairs of frightened eyes stared directly at Sophie standing there in her embroidered white nightdress, with bare feet, pale face and tumbled fair hair. Sophie snapped the cane back the other way, breaking it in two.

  ‘Don’t you ever do that again,’ Sophie threatened Miss Crowe. Sophie felt her strength wavering and her form shimmering and thinning. She floated to the fire and threw the broken cane onto the flames, where it smouldered and flared.

  ‘Wha’… was … that?’ squeaked Miss Crowe, her body quaking with shock.

  ‘A guardian angel sent by my mother to make sure you never harm my sister again,’ retorted Nell strongly. ‘Come on, Charlotte. Sit down and I will fetch wet bandages and ointment.’

  Miss Crowe scuttled for the door as if all the hounds of hell were on her tail. Nell followed quickly behind her, running to the kitchen.

  Sophie sat down next to Charlotte. Sophie felt weak and insubstantial, but she wanted to wait with Charlotte until Nell returned to look after her.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Charlotte, directing the question towards the fireplace. ‘Are you a kindly spirit? Are you a guardian angel, as my sister said, or a malevolent ghost sent to trouble us?’

  Charlotte obviously could no longer see Sophie but could somehow still sense her presence.

  ‘I’m a friend,’ answered Sophie softly, but she could not tell if Charlotte could hear her.

  Sophie felt woozy and exhausted and desperately needed to sleep after the strain of her exertions. She floated gently off the bed, up towards the ceiling, then up into the cloudy dark sky way above and up, up to her own snug bed at Nonnie’s apartment.

  Charlotte was left sitting on the bed wondering if she might have been dreaming. Yet when she checked, she could clearly see the charred remains of the cane in the grate. Had she seen a ghost or an angel or a fairy sprite? Whatever it was, Charlotte was very grateful she had appeared.

  It was late when Sophie finally awoke the next morning. The sun blazed through the window, revealing a deep-blue sky. Jess’s bed was empty and Sophie could hear the muted hum of voices from the
kitchen. Sophie stretched long and hard, her muscles stiff and sore.

  A feeling of great sadness washed over her as she remembered the deaths of Alexander and Eliza and baby James. What a terrible thing for Charlotte and Nell to experience: the loss of all their family. Sophie thought of her own mother and father and little Will. What if she lost her own family?

  At last she climbed out of bed and padded to the window, cradling the gold locket in her hand. Outside was a stately gum tree, its strong branches reaching for the sky. Its bark was streaked white and grey and brown and red, its leaves silvery-green against the sky. A cheeky kookaburra sat on a branch and laughed at her, its familiar chortle echoing through the garden.

  The bushy green suburbs rolled away below, and in the far distance she could see the sparkling blue smudge of the harbour and the glittering office towers of Sydney. Nonnie’s apartment seemed a million miles away from the misty lochs and rolling heather of Scotland in the 1850s.

  Sophie shook herself mentally, carefully placed the locket in the carved wooden box and headed to the bathroom for a long hot shower, images of Charlotte Mackenzie and Dungorm rolling through her head.

  Did Charlotte really throw the Star of Serendib in the loch? How did she manage to get back the locket from Aunt Arabella? How did Charlotte and Nell come to escape awful Aunt Arabella and Uncle Roderick, and come out to Australia all alone?

  ‘Good morning, darling,’ Nonnie greeted Sophie as she entered the kitchen. ‘You had such a long sleep, I thought you might be ill. Your mum rang this morning to talk to you both, but she said she’d ring back later this morning.’

  Nonnie, as usual, was dressed immaculately, in a tweed suit, pearl brooch, stockings and high-heeled pumps, her mouth slicked with red lipstick, her hair styled and curled. Sophie smiled wanly and gave her grandmother a good morning hug and kiss.

  ‘Mum said that Sammy is really missing us,’ Jess added, bouncing over to the table. ‘She’s been sleeping curled up at Mum’s feet and keeps getting up to check our room to see if we’re home yet. Will checked under our doonas this morning, sure that we must be home by now.’