by Lyn Gardner
“Stay where you are,” he growled at Rose. She fixed him with her slate-dark eyes just as she would a rowdy audience at Campion’s. Often a look alone could quieten and calm them.
“Rose!” yelled Freddie, and she could hear the fear in his voice.
“Keep calm, Freddie. I’m here,” she said soothingly. She kept her eyes fixed on the man and took a small steady step forward. A mistake.
“I told you not to move,” snarled his lordship, and he held the pistol to Freddie’s head, the metal glinting against the boy’s white skin.
“Please,” said Rose. “Give me Freddie. He’s done nothing to hurt you. Let him go. He’s just a child.”
Lord Henry gave a bitter laugh. “But he’s not just a child, is he? Oh no. He’s the past come back to haunt me and take away my future, and my son’s future. He is the child who should never have been born and whose very existence mocks me and destroys everything I have plotted and planned for.”
“I hope all the plotting and planning has made you happy,” said Rose quietly. She knew it was risky but she hoped her directness might disarm him, catch him off guard. If she could keep him talking perhaps she would have a chance of grabbing Freddie from him.
Lord Henry stared at her, startled by her response. “You cannot possibly understand what it feels like to be the second son of a great titled family. To know that one day your older brother will inherit everything: title, house, land, fortune. Everything. And you will have nothing. That he is the heir and that you are the spare. My brother and I were twins. He was born just seven minutes before me. But what a difference those seven minutes meant to our fates. He was the elder son, the chosen one. I was nothing. Growing up I was certain there had been a mix-up at our births. That I was the true heir and he the usurper. I was certain that eventually someone would realise. I knew that I deserved Easingford and the title more than he did. I loved Easingford so much more than him. But nobody seemed to notice; Frederick remained the chosen one. He inherited the title. I was just a nobody.”
“Like me,” said Rose softly.
“Then fate, which made me the younger son, played into my hands. My brother died. Now everything I had so long desired was within my grasp. But then his widow announced that she was with child. It was a crushing blow but there was still hope. If the child was a girl, she would merely inherit some of her mother’s wealth, but I would still get the title, house and land. But if the child was a boy, once again I would lose out to my brother.”
“And you weren’t prepared to let that happen,” whispered Rose.
Lord Henry shook his head. He seemed much calmer now, as if talking had soothed him.
“At the time the baby was due, an influenza epidemic was raging across the county. Luck was on my side again. Lily, my brother’s widow, caught the disease. It seemed likely that she would die before the baby could be born. But she survived just long enough to have a son: Edward. A mewling little thing. It was not hard to smother my nephew and bury him with his mother in Easingford churchyard.
“But fate was laughing at me yet again. It seems that the child survived, rescued from the coffin by the coffin maker and his wife. Lily’s sister, Sarah, my ward, was witness to the miraculous escape. She chose to share this information with me after I’d married her for her money and she’d produced Edgar, our son. I decided the best place for her was a mental asylum where no one would believe a word she said. I had no reason to believe what she was saying myself. After all, I’d seen the child being nailed up in the coffin with his mother with my own eyes.
For many years all seemed well. But then my son, Edgar, ran away from school. Of course I put investigators on to the matter immediately. They scoured the country and fortunately they were clever enough to check the ships’ passenger lists at all major ports. On one ship travelling to America they found the name Ed Ford. I was sure it was him. To this day I don’t know how he got the money for the passage. From the moment he stepped off the boat in New York I have had him watched. I knew that I would yet lure him back and make him face up to his responsibilities as my heir and custodian of an ancient title and great estate.
“Then that blackmailing Lizzie Gawkin appeared and the ghosts began to rise. My dead brother’s son came back to haunt me. Conveniently he was murdered by Lizzie Gawkin; she told me so herself with some pride. But it turned out that he had a son of his own. This child. I can see the butterfly mark on his neck that proves he is a true Easingford.”
Lord Henry suddenly tensed as footsteps approached. “I have fought for what was rightfully mine and I’m not going to let it go. This child must die. My brother snatched the prize from me and I’m not going to have it snatched again by his grandson.”
“But he’s not your brother’s grandson, he’s your grandson,” came a quiet voice out of the fog. “Freddie isn’t Edward’s son, he’s Edgar’s.”
Thomas, Mr Cherryble and the man who had spoken, Oliver Woldingham, stepped into view. Two policemen followed, with a struggling, snarling Lizzie Gawkin in their grasp.
Lord Henry started when he saw the parson. “You lie,” he scowled. “Edgar is in America. The investigators showed me a photograph of him on the gangplank in New York disembarking from the ship. It was blurred but it was definitely him.”
“I’m afraid you are mistaken,” replied Oliver. “The boy who went to America almost thirteen years ago was your nephew, Edward, the boy you thought you’d put safely in his grave. He is almost three years older than your own son, Edgar, but the resemblance is considerable. I gave him the money to start his new life after he had suffered a terrible tragedy in London. His wife had died shortly after giving birth and his newborn daughter was stolen away by the woman he had entrusted to look after her temporarily and to whom he had given the only things he had to offer her, a silver cup and a ribbon.”
“So where did my son go?” asked Lord Henry, frowning.
“He came to me,” said Oliver, “after he ran away from school. Someone at his school had found out that his mother, Sarah, was in a mental asylum. You had lied to him and told him that she had died at his birth, and he wanted to know the truth. I confirmed that she did indeed live. We both tried to visit her at Ivanhoe House but were thwarted. After that he was quite determined never to return to school or to Easingford Hall. He wanted nothing more to do with you or his old life. I respected that. I had seen how the poor boy had grown up motherless and unloved, and yet had remained true of heart and spirit. I told him nothing of his cousin. I felt it was safer for both boys to know as little as possible. After all, you had already proved yourself prepared to murder an innocent babe. What might you do to anyone who knew of this crime? Even if it was your own son?
“I gave Edgar what small amount of money I could, he chose a new name from the graveyard and I sent him out into the world to make his way as an actor. We kept in touch. Then he contacted me. He had seen a review of a performance in Chicago by Ed Ford and thought that the resemblance and the name were too much of a coincidence. He was curious. Years had passed; both boys had grown into mature young men. So I told him the truth and put him in correspondence with his cousin in America. Your son was a good man, a very good man and he was determined to try and find Edward’s stolen child if she was still alive. He wrote to me shortly after Christmas saying he was certain that he was close to identifying the child and would be in touch soon. I never heard from him again, and only discovered a few days ago that he had been murdered.”
“The name he was using?” said Lord Henry brokenly, already sure of the answer.
“Ned. Ned Dorset,” said Oliver.
Henry Easingford’s face slackened and he let Freddie go. The boy ran to Rose, who scooped him into her arms and cradled him.
“Ned Dorset? I never killed no Ned Dorset,” said Lizzie wildly. “Never met him in me life.”
“Yes, you did,” said Aurora, who had been standing quietly at the back of the group for a while. “We met him by unfortunate chance outside the
post office on the morning we arrived at Campion’s. Because of his resemblance to his cousin, Edward, you mistook him for the bereaved man who’d asked you to look after his baby. Quickly, you decided to murder him before he identified you as the woman who had stolen his child just when all your plans to blackmail Lord Easingford were coming to fruition. Only of course, he wasn’t the man you took him for: he was Edgar Easingford.”
“My son,” said his lordship, and grief seemed suddenly to envelop him like a shroud.
“Lies!” shouted Lizzie. “Damnable lies!”
“No, they’re not,” said Thomas, putting his arm around Aurora’s thin shoulders. “It was you I saw through the window of my study when you came back for the babies you left on the steps of Campion’s all those years ago. I didn’t recognise you at first when you arrived at Campion’s with Aurora. But I did remember later, and that’s why you attacked me and tried to kill me. I’m certain that you tried to take both babies because you didn’t know which of the two was Edward Easingford’s daughter.”
Lizzie gave a nasty little laugh. “You’re right. I had no idea which one was a lord’s daughter and which one was a nasty little nobody stolen out of a pram in the West End.”
“So,” whispered Rose, coming to stand next to Aurora, “which one of us is Edward Easingford’s lost baby?”
Lizzie brayed like a sick donkey. “Well, it’s not that stupid Aurora; she hasn’t got the butterfly mark. So it must be you.”
There was a tiny silence and Rose saw a flicker of pain pass across Thomas’s face. It felt as if somebody had reached right inside her chest and was squeezing her heart tightly. She could hardly breathe. Had she found her real family? Could it be that she wasn’t Rose Campion, but Rose Easingford? Suddenly the thought of no longer being Thomas’s daughter and living at Campion’s felt like a bereavement.
Aurora threw Rose an anxious look, and then she said quietly, “You’re quite wrong, Lizzie. I do have a butterfly mark. But it’s not on my neck, it’s on my ankle. But you wouldn’t know that because in all the years I lived with you, you never once bathed me, dressed me, never played with me or tickled me, never looked after me when I was sick, never cared for me at all.”
She walked up to Lord Easingford. “Would you like me to show you my butterfly?”
He shrank away from her and Aurora said, “I may be an Easingford, but the only family I’ve ever known is the one I found with Rose and Thomas at Campion’s.” She put her arm through Rose’s. “Rose Campion may not be my blood twin, but she will be my sister forever.”
Several more policemen had arrived. They were attempting to pull the struggling Lizzie away.
“Wait,” said Rose. She looked pleadingly at Lizzie. “Please. Tell me, where in the West End did you steal me from and what kind of pram was it?”
Lizzie laughed like a hyena.
“Oh, Rose, you don’t know Lizzie Gawkin very well, do you? I make it a point never to give away information for free.”
Lord Easingford stood weeping silently, his shoulders shuddering. A policeman approached him warily. “The gun, my lord,” he said. “Please give me the gun.”
Lord Henry was clearly a broken man. It was as if his entire face had, in the space of just a few minutes, cracked like the glaze on an expensive vase. He looked down at the pistol in his hand. He moved as if to hand it to the policeman and then he looked at Lizzie Gawkin, who was being led back down the street in handcuffs.
“Lizzie,” he called. “Lizzie Gawkin.” She turned and looked him straight in the face. “This is for my son,” he said, and before anyone could stop him he shot her with an aim so true that the bullet hit her right in the middle of the forehead. Then he handed the still-warm gun to a policeman and said wearily, “Now, gentlemen, I’m ready to accompany you to the police station.”
Rose, Thomas and Aurora stood at the end of the platform at Paddington Station. Although, Aurora wasn’t so much standing as hopping from foot to foot and walking nervously around in circles while keeping one eye firmly fixed on the disembarking passengers. The boat train from Bristol bringing travellers from New York had arrived just a few minutes before in a cloud of steam, and porters in their blue uniforms with badges saying Great Western Railway were still scurrying around and piling trunks on to trolleys.
“Maybe he missed the train,” said Aurora.
Rose squeezed her hand. She understood how Aurora must feel – when you long for something momentous to happen but also want to delay it because after it has happened there can be no going back to your old life.
“People are still coming down the platform,” said Rose soothingly.
They were, but just a trickle now. A whistle was blown and the train at the next platform began moving with a judder and a screech. Steam billowed across the platform they were watching so intently. As the steam began to swirl and clear, a man could be just glimpsed walking from the far end of the platform towards them. He was holding a large battered leather holdall and his head was low. He drew nearer.
“There he is,” said Rose.
“It may not be him,” said Aurora in a small voice.
The man looked up. There could be no doubt. It was Edward Frederick Dorset, the new Lord Easingford. He looked so like Ned, and yet here in the flesh the resemblance to Aurora was unmistakable too. The man raised his head, faltered, stopped walking completely and stared at his daughter. A look of wonder and confusion crossed his face. Then he smiled shyly and raised a hand in a gesture that was part wave and part salute.
“Go on, Aurora,” said Rose. “Go and meet your father. He’s come all the way from America to see you.”
Aurora looked uncertainly at Rose for a moment, and Rose whispered something and gave Aurora a little push to propel her down the platform towards Edward.
Thomas put his arm around Rose. She smiled up at him. “Don’t look so worried, Thomas. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m watching and wishing it was me, wishing I’d found my father.”
“And are you?” asked Thomas very gently. “It would be natural if you were.”
Rose shook her head so her chestnut curls bobbed vigorously. “There was a tiny moment, no more than a second, on that ghastly night when I thought that I might be the lost child and I thought how wonderful it was to know for certain who you are and where you came from.” What she didn’t say was that in that same moment she had also seen the loss etched on Thomas’s face.
Rose fingered the cuff of Thomas’s greatcoat. “You’ll always be my father, Thomas. Campion’s will always be my home.” She grinned. “And it’s just as well that it turns out I’m not a lady, or I’d have had to go back to Miss Pecksniff’s and that would have killed either her or me.”
Thomas smiled down at her. “Whatever happens I’ll always be there for you, Rose. Always. We’ll ask the police for reports of babies snatched from prams in the West End thirteen years ago. It’s more than we’ve ever had to go on in the past. Maybe we will find some trace of your parents. And I’m going to get Mr Cherryble to see if there is anything that might be done for little Effie’s mother.”
Aurora and Edward were walking towards Rose and Thomas together, unmistakably father and daughter. They were already chatting away as if they had known each other all their lives.
“Rosie,” asked Thomas curiously, “what did you whisper to Aurora just now?”
Rose smiled. “I just told her that if she didn’t like Edward Easingford she could always stay at Campion’s with us, and you would be her father. After all, we are almost sisters.”
Aurora and Edward had reached Rose and Thomas, and Edward put his hand out. “Mr Campion, I’m so pleased to meet you. Thank you for your letter. Getting the news that my daughter had been found has made me the happiest man alive.”
“Thomas, your lordship. Call me Thomas.”
Edward grinned. “You’d better drop the lordship too. I’m Ed. It’s what my friends call me and I hope we will be fast friends, Th
omas.”
He turned to Rose. “And you must be the Rose that Lizzie Gawkin left on the steps along with Aurora.”
Rose nodded. “And you’re an actor. Just like Ned was.”
“Poor Ned,” said Edward. “To think that I found a cousin and lost him in the space of a few weeks. I feel as if I have lost a brother. Was he a good actor?”
“A good actor and a good man,” said Rose softly.
Edward nodded. “He must have been. Without Ned I would never have found Aurora, my lost daughter.”
“Are you a good actor, Ed?” asked Rose.
“I’m not sure it’s for me to say. But I’ve done a fair bit. I had just left Chicago to play Hamlet in New York when the news reached me from Thomas and I left for England immediately.”
“Goodness, Aurora,” grinned Rose. “He really must love you very much to have sacrificed playing Hamlet in New York for you.”
“Shall we go back to Campion’s?” asked Thomas.
“Yes,” said Aurora. “I want to show Edward everything. The best that Campion’s Palace of Varieties and Wonders has to offer.”
“And that includes our bicycle act,” said Rose. “It’s the hit of the season. We’ve had offers from all over, but we’ll never do it anywhere but Campion’s.”
The trunks and cases were stacked up by the stage door ready to be taken by carriage to King’s Cross Station and from there by train to Yorkshire. There was the first hint of spring in the air. Freddie was in the yard playing with Ophelia the cat. Already his new velvet knickerbockers were covered with mud.
Grace shook her head and smiled at Sarah Easingford, who was sitting on one of the trunks. The colour seemed to have come back into her eyes. Every day since she and Grace were released from the asylum she seemed more substantial as if she were a ghost coming back to life.
“I fear we’re never going to make a gentleman out of Freddie,” laughed Grace.
Sarah smiled. “In my experience, gentlemen are overrated.”
Grace reached for Sarah’s hand, and asked softly, “Are you nervous about returning to Easingford?”