Sapphire Battersea
Page 25
I managed to curb my impatience when it was Sarah’s turn at last, and her mama spoke to her softly and warmly, as if big lumpy Sarah were a small girl again. I could scarcely breathe now. It was my turn! Would my mama cross over from her new home in the spirit world to talk to me?
‘Is there anybody there – a new spirit, anxious to reassure her little daughter?’ Madame Berenice asked.
There was no answer.
‘Is there anybody there?’ Madame Berenice repeated.
We waited, again in vain.
I gave a little sob, and Sarah’s hand tightened over mine.
‘Won’t you come, Mama?’ I whispered in the dark.
‘Hush, child. The spirits can only communicate through me,’ said Madame Berenice. ‘We must all stay holding hands, shut our eyes, and pray for a materialization. I sense a presence – but the spirits are shy, especially when asked to materialize.’
We held hands, we shut our eyes, we waited. Then I was aware of a slight rustle of material. I opened my eyes. An indistinct figure, all in misty white, was standing near us, very slowly moving towards me. Her face was obscured by a long white veil.
‘Is it you, Mama?’ I asked. ‘Oh, Madame Berenice, is it really my mama?’
‘It is your own dear mother, Hetty,’ a strange, eerie voice whispered.
‘You sound so – so different, Mama. Are you all right? Are you still coughing?’
‘There are no ailments in the spirit world, my dear. I am in perfect health now. I am very happy. You must not grieve for me, Hetty.’
She glided nearer. She walked with slow strange grace, her skirts rustling.
Mama had always walked with quick darting steps.
She bent down before me. She was tall and stately.
Mama was scarcely taller than me.
She bent nearer and I smelled her rose cologne.
Mama never used cologne in her life – she simply smelled of her own sweet warm flesh.
She kissed me on the forehead with smooth cool lips.
Mama’s lips were chapped and rough because she licked them anxiously – and she never kissed my brow. She kissed my cheeks and lips, and sometimes the tip of my nose when she was being playful.
‘Mama?’ I said.
‘My dear little child.’
I wasn’t her dear little child at all. She wasn’t my mama. I started trembling. I knew who she was – Emily, the tall woman who had let me in and taken my money. Madame Berenice’s sister – and accomplice. I wanted to rip her white floating veil from her head, switch on the light, and expose her to all the people sitting there so stupidly, paying their money week after week for a fraudulent trick. But somehow I held myself rigid. I bit my lips in an effort not to fly into a temper.
All these people sitting with me in the dark believed utterly. My dear friend Sarah lived for these moments with her ‘mother’. She had given up her chance of a materialization tonight for my sake. I could not take away the most precious consolation of her hard life.
So I held my tongue while the ghastly false Mama kissed me again and circled the table, and the others cried out and marvelled. She told me to be a good brave girl, and she promised to watch over me and visit me often on Sunday evenings. Then Madame Berenice told us to close our eyes again and give thanks for this marvellous materialization from the spirit world.
I kept my eyes open and watched the white woman steal silently out of the door. I waited while Madame Berenice murmured some spirit mumbo-jumbo, taking short rapid breaths as if she’d been running. Then she called out for light. Emily returned, bearing a lamp. She was dressed all in black now. She had obviously thrust her ghostly white garments into some cupboard. It seemed quite clear to me that she was the apparition pretending to be Mama. She had the same stance, the same walk, even the same smell – but all the others were totally oblivious to this. They marvelled at the success of the evening and crowded around me joyfully.
Sarah gave me a warm hug. ‘I’m so very happy for you, Hetty,’ she said.
The others patted me fondly and congratulated me.
‘Say thank you nicely to Madame, Hetty,’ said Sarah. ‘She has worked so hard on your behalf.’
I stared at Madame Berenice. She was worse than Mr Clarendon. At least he only charged a few pennies per person, and he didn’t just prey on the bereaved. I bent forward and whispered into her turbaned ear, so that only she could hear me: ‘You’re a wicked old fraud. I want my ten shillings back!’
She looked at me with narrowed eyes, her rouged lips set in a strained smile. She did not acknowledge me in any way – but at the door on the way out, Emily took me a little roughly by the shoulder and thrust a ten-shilling note at me.
‘Take it and never come back,’ she hissed.
Then Sarah caught me up, still so innocently happy for me. I had to keep up the pretence, though inside my heart was breaking. I so wished I’d been convinced by the clumsy materialization, but I was too close to dear Mama to be fooled by a charlatan.
Sarah burbled on and on about her dear mother. I listened sadly, trying my best to make encouraging responses.
‘But you must tell me all about you now, Hetty dear. How have you been keeping? Have you got a new position? Come back and have a cup of tea with Mrs B and me and tell us everything!’
Sarah was so persuasive, linking her arm in mine, smiling at me fondly as if I were her long-lost sister, that I took her up on her offer. I had nowhere else to go, after all.
It seemed very strange approaching Mr Buchanan’s house and going down the area steps. Sarah looked anxiously up at the dimly lit study window, but Mr Buchanan was safely at his desk out of sight. Sarah put her finger to her lips even so, and I tiptoed down the steps as if I were her silent shadow.
The kitchen smelled warmly and wonderfully of savoury pie. The table was all set for supper. Mrs Briskett was busy cutting the pie into slices. She paused dramatically when she caught sight of me, and then rushed towards me, mercifully dropping the knife before embracing me, hugging me hard against her upholstered chest.
But there was another person in the kitchen – a pretty little fair girl with big blue eyes, almost as blue as my own.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, taken aback.
She smiled sweetly at me. ‘I am Rose-May. I know exactly who you are. You’re naughty Hetty Feather! I’ve heard such tales about you!’
‘Rose-May’s our new little maid,’ said Mrs Briskett, and she gave her a fond pat on her curly head. ‘She’s shaping up nicely now.’
‘Mrs Briskett and I have been making rabbit pie,’ said Rose-May. ‘Won’t you try a slice, Hetty?’
I looked at the steaming pie, the pastry crust crisply golden, risen high, a fancy edging pricked all the way around. ‘Did you do the pastry?’ I asked Rose-May.
She nodded proudly, flexing her fingers. ‘Mrs Briskett says I have a really light touch,’ she declared.
‘Well, isn’t that just fine and dandy,’ I said. I looked at Sarah, who was taking off her bonnet, still flushed with excitement after her encounter with her mama. ‘Why did you not accompany Sarah to Madame Berenice’s?’ I asked prissy little Rose-May. ‘Did she not ask you? I used to go with her to make sure she didn’t have a swooning fit.’
‘I care about Sarah, of course, but I couldn’t possibly go with her to that meeting. I am a Baptist, and we don’t hold with spirit meetings and suchlike,’ said Rose-May.
‘Rose-May’s very devout,’ said Sarah, sounding a little in awe of her.
‘Mr Buchanan sent me to the Baptist Society to find a new maid of all work. He wanted to find a good meek girl who wouldn’t cause any trouble,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘He didn’t want to risk another foundling! But tell me, Hetty, what are you doing here? Did you meet up with our Sarah by chance?’
‘Hush now, Mrs B, poor Hetty’s been through a great deal. Her mother passed over this summer.’
‘Oh, dear child, I’m so sorry,’ said Mrs Briskett.
‘But Hetty has been reunited with her dear mother this evening. Isn’t that wonderful?’ said Sarah, still flushed and glowing with the excitement of it all.
‘I’m not so sure wonderful is the word I’d use,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘Look at the state of the poor girl. White as a sheet, and skinnier than ever.’ She steered me gently to the table and sat me down on the bench. ‘Eat some pie, child,’ she commanded.
‘Poor Hetty!’ said Rose-May. She bent her head, clasped her hands, and said piously, ‘For what we are about to receive, may we be truly grateful. Amen.’
I was truly grateful to be offered a slice of pie, and I suppose it tasted delicious, but I found it hard to eat. I chewed long and hard on the rabbit meat, but I couldn’t seem to make it go down.
‘Don’t you like rabbit pie, Hetty?’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘Young Bertie brought us such a nice fat rabbit, ready skinned.’
‘He said he’d make me a little fur tippet out of all his rabbit skins,’ Rose-May said, giggling. ‘Like Baby Bunting.’
I stared at her sweet simpering little face. I wanted to push it straight into the wretched pie. My stomach heaved.
‘Excuse me,’ I gasped, my hand over my mouth.
I ran out of the kitchen, making for the horrible privy out in the back yard. I heard Sarah asking if I was all right, and Rose-May wondering if she should run after me, and Mrs Briskett saying, ‘Poor little thing, she really is an orphan now.’
I got to the privy just in time, for I was violently sick. Then I stood outside in the dark, staring up at the crescent moon, tears running down my face. I could not bear to go back into the kitchen. I didn’t belong there any more. I did not belong with anyone. I wasn’t special to anyone at all, only Mama – and now I had lost her for ever. I was an orphan.
You are NOT an orphan!
It was Mama’s voice, clear and distinct, as if she were standing right beside me in the moonlight.
‘Oh, Mama, is it really you?’
Of course it’s me, you silly girl. Don’t you know your own Mama?
‘But – but how is it you? Did Madame Berenice conjure you up after all?’
That dreadful turbaned charlatan! As if I’d ever lower myself to speak through HER! Now listen to me, girl. You are NOT an orphan. You still have one parent alive.
‘You mean …?’
Why don’t you try to find your father?
‘But – but you said he doesn’t even know I exist.’
Then perhaps it’s time to tell him!
‘But, Mama—’
No buts.
‘I’m not sure I want a father. I want you. I want to feel your arms around me! Can’t you materialize somehow?’
We don’t need materializations, darling. YOUR arms are around ME – because I am in your heart.
I crossed my hands over my chest. I felt my heart beating wildly, blood throbbing through my body, so that I tingled all over. I stood there, still crying, though I was happy now. I wasn’t alone any more.
‘Thank you, Mama,’ I whispered into the dark.
I’ll always be with you, Hetty.
‘I’m not Hetty any more, Mama, I am Sapphire Battersea – and I’m going to find my father.’
About the Author
Jacqueline Wilson is one of Britain’s bestselling authors, with 30 million books sold in the UK. She has been honoured with many prizes for her work, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Children’s Book of the Year. She is the author most often borrowed from libraries over the last decade. Jacqueline is a former Children’s Laureate, a professor of children’s literature and in 2008 she was appointed a Dame for services to children’s literacy.
Also available by Jacqueline Wilson
Published in Corgi Pups, for beginner readers:
THE DINOSAUR’S PACKED LUNCH
THE MONSTER STORY-TELLER
Published in Young Corgi, for newly confident readers:
LIZZIE ZIPMOUTH
SLEEPOVERS
Available from Doubleday/Corgi Yearling Books:
BAD GIRLS
THE BED AND BREAKFAST STAR
BEST FRIENDS
BURIED ALIVE!
CANDYFLOSS
THE CAT MUMMY
CLEAN BREAK
CLIFFHANGER
COOKIE
THE DARE GAME
THE DIAMOND GIRLS
DOUBLE ACT
DOUBLE ACT (PLAY EDITION)
GLUBBSLYME
THE ILLUSTRATED MUM
JACKY DAYDREAM
LILY ALONE
LITTLE DARLINGS
THE LONGEST WHALE SONG
THE LOTTIE PROJECT
MIDNIGHT
THE MUM-MINDER
MY SECRET DIARY
MY SISTER JODIE
SECRETS
STARRING TRACY BEAKER
THE STORY OF TRACY BEAKER
THE SUITCASE KID
VICKY ANGEL
THE WORRY WEBSITE
Collections:
THE JACQUELINE WILSON COLLECTION
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THE BED AND BREAKFAST STAR
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JACQUELINE WILSON’S SUPERSTARS
includes THE SUITCASE KID and THE LOTTIE PROJECT
Available from Doubleday/Corgi Books, for older readers:
DUSTBIN BABY
GIRLS IN LOVE
GIRLS UNDER PRESSURE
GIRLS OUT LATE
GIRLS IN TEARS
KISS
LOLA ROSE
LOVE LESSONS
Join the official Jacqueline Wilson fan club at
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SAPPHIRE BATTERSEA
AN RHCB DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 409 02725 6
Published in Great Britain by RHBC Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2011
Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2011
Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2011
First published in Great Britain by Doubleday
The right of Jacqueline Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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Table of Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21<
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Chapter 22
About the Author
Also by Jacqueline Wilson
Copyright