The Clockmaker's Daughter

by Kate Morton

  ‘What sort of items were taken, Mr Holmes?’

  ‘Oh, mere trifles in the scheme of things, Inspector Wesley. Nothing to bother yourself with. I know how busy you are. I’m just pleased to have been able to offer you some small assistance in clearing up this disturbing matter. To think of my friend being taken in by a pair of charlatans – well, it makes my blood boil. I reproach myself for not having put it all together sooner. We’re lucky Mr Brown sent you to us.’

  The final nail in the coffin came when the inspector arrived one morning and announced that Lily Millington had not even been the model’s real name. ‘My men in London have been asking questions and looking into the records of births, deaths and marriages, and the only Lily Millington they could find was a poor child who was beaten to death at a public house in Covent Garden in 1851. Sold to a pair of baby farmers and lock pickers by her father as a child. Little wonder why she didn’t make it.’

  And so, it was settled. Even Lucy had to accept that the inspector was right. They had all been taken in and swindled. Lily Millington was a liar and a thief; her name wasn’t even Lily Millington. And now the faithless model was in America with the Radcliffe Blue and the man who’d shot Fanny.

  The investigation was closed and the inspector and the constable left Birchwood, shaking hands with Mr Brown and Grandfather and making promises to contact their counterparts in New York City in the hope that they might thereby at least recover the diamond.

  Uncertain what else to do, stuck out in the country where the lazy stretch of summer had come to an abrupt end and the rain had set in, the Magenta Brotherhood returned briefly to Birchwood Manor. But Edward was a wreck and his desolation and anger permeated the very air. He and the house were one, and the rooms seemed to take on the faint but foul odour of his grief. Powerless to help him, Lucy stayed out of his way. His distress was catching, though, and she found herself unable to settle to anything. She was beset, too, with an uncharacteristic apprehension about the stairs where it had all happened, and took to using the smaller set at the other end of the house instead.

  Finally, Edward could stand it no longer: he packed his things and sent for a carriage. Two weeks after Fanny was killed, the curtains were closed, the doors were locked, and two horse-drawn carriages thundered up the lane from Birchwood Manor, carrying them all away.

  Lucy, sitting on the back seat of the second one, had turned as they left, watching as the house receded further and further into the distance. For a second, she thought that she saw one of the curtains in the attic shift. But it was just Edward’s story, she knew; the Night of the Following playing on her mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Back in London, nothing was the same. Edward departed almost at once, travelling to the Continent and leaving no forwarding address. Lucy never saw what became of his final painting of Lily Millington. After he had left she dug up the hidden key to his studio and went inside, but there was no sign of it there. In fact, all trace of Lily was gone: the hundreds of sketches and studies had all been pulled from the walls. It was as if Edward had known even then that he was never again going to paint inside the Hampstead garden studio.

  Clare, for her part, did not stay long either. Having given up her pursuit of Thurston Holmes, she married the first wealthy gentleman who asked her and was soon happily enough ensconced within a large soulless country house of which Grandmother was predictably enamoured. She had two babies in quick succession, fat little wrigglers with wide cheeks and milky jowls, and on occasion over the years, when Lucy went to visit, spoke vaguely about having a third if only her husband would deign to spend more than a week each month at home.

  By 1863, the year that Lucy turned fourteen, it was only Mother and her left at home. It seemed to have happened so quickly that each was left as stunned as the other. Finding themselves in a room together, they would both look up, surprised, before one of them – usually Lucy – made an excuse to leave, saving each the difficulty of having to invent a reason to explain the lack of conversation.

  Lucy, as she grew into adulthood, eschewed love. She had seen what it could do. Lily Millington had left Edward and it had broken him. And so she avoided love. That is, she avoided the complication of locking hearts with another human being. For Lucy had fallen deeply in love with knowledge. She was greedy for its acquisition, impatient with her own inability to absorb new information quickly enough. The world was just so utterly abundant, and for each book that she read, each theory that she came to understand, ten more branched out before her. Some nights she lay awake wondering how she could best divide her lifetime: there simply wasn’t enough of it for a person to ensure that they learned everything they wished to know.

  One day, when she was sixteen years old and sorting through the items in her bedroom in order that a new bookcase might be moved up from the study, she came across the small suitcase that she had taken with her to Birchwood Manor in the summer of 1862. She had pushed it to the back of the cupboard beneath the window seat when she returned, wanting to forget the entire episode, and hadn’t given it another thought in the intervening three years. But Lucy was a sensible girl, and so, despite not having expected to turn up the suitcase, now that she had, she decided that it made no sense at all to avoid dealing with the items inside.

  She unlatched the case and was pleased to see her edition of The Chemical History of a Candle lying on top. Beneath it were two more books, one of which she remembered finding on the top shelf at Birchwood Manor. Lucy opened it now, gently because the spine was still hanging by only a few fine threads, and saw that the letters were still there; the designs for the priest holes precisely where she’d put them.

  She set the books to one side and took up the item of clothing that had been packed beneath it all. Lucy remembered it at once. It was the dress that she’d been wearing that day, her costume for the photograph that Felix was going to take down by the river. Someone must have removed it after she fell, for when she woke in the yellow-striped room at the public house, she had been wearing her nightdress. Lucy remembered packing the costume away afterwards, balling it up and pushing it to the bottom of her case. It had given her an unpleasant feeling then, and now she held it in front of her, testing to see whether she was still spooked by it. She wasn’t. She was sure she wasn’t. Her skin did not heat; her heart did not race. Nonetheless, she had no wish to keep the item; she would put it out for Jenny to cut up for cleaning rags. First, though, because it was something that she’d been taught to do when she was young, she checked the pockets, expecting to find nothing but lint and the inside lining of the fabric.

  But what was this? A hard, round item at the bottom of a pocket.

  Even as she told herself that it was one of the river stones she’d collected at Birchwood Manor, Lucy knew better. Her stomach knotted and an instant wave of fear flooded her system. She didn’t need to look. It was as if by touching it a rope had been pulled and a curtain lifted, and now light shone onto the dusty stage of her memory.

  The Radcliffe Blue.

  She remembered now.

  It was Lucy who had been wearing it. She had gone back to the house in a tantrum, no longer needed for the photograph, and whilst exploring in Edward’s room she had come across the diamond pendant. Ever since they had walked together to the village, Lucy had found herself thinking of Lily Millington, seeing her through Edward’s eyes, wishing to be more like her. And, holding the necklace, she had perceived a way to feel – just for a moment – what it must be like to be Lily Millington. To be stared at by Edward and adored.

  Lucy had still been looking at herself in the mirror when Lily Millington appeared behind her. She’d slipped the necklace from her throat and been about to put it back inside the box when the man, Martin, arrived and tried to take Lily with him. Lucy had dropped the Blue into her pocket instead. And there it was still, exactly where she’d put it.

  Lucy had come to believe the inspector’s story about Lily Millington, but once she found the Ra
dcliffe Blue, the stitch at the centre of the tapestry was cut and the rest of the picture, so carefully embroidered, began to unravel. Quite simply: without the theft of the heirloom, there was no motive. And while officials in New York had verified that a couple travelling under the names of ‘Mr and Mrs Radcliffe’ had arrived and been registered at the port, anyone could have used those tickets. The last person Lucy had seen holding them was that awful man, Martin. Edward had seen him fleeing from the house. He might have used one of the tickets and sold the other; he might have sold them both.

  There was also the matter of the secret chamber in the staircase. For Lily Millington to have gone with Martin, she would have had to let him know where she was hiding and he to figure out the trapdoor. Lucy had needed instructions and even then it had been tricky. It would have taken time for the man to find Lily and further time for him to solve the lock’s puzzle. But Fanny had arrived so quickly, and Edward soon after that. There simply hadn’t been long enough for Martin to liberate Lily Millington.

  Besides, Lucy had seen the way that Lily Millington had looked at Martin in genuine fear; she had seen, too, the way Lily looked at Edward. And Edward had loved Lily Millington absolutely; there was no doubting that. He had been a ghost of himself after she disappeared.

  That Lily Millington had disappeared was not in question. No one had glimpsed her since that day at Birchwood Manor. Lucy had been the last person to see her, when she was locking Lily Millington inside the hideaway.

  Now, back at Birchwood Manor, twenty years later, Lucy stood up and plaited her fingers together, flexing her hands in an old gesture of anxiety. She let them fall gently to her sides.

  There was nothing for it; no use stalling now. If she were going to start a school in this place, and she felt very strongly that she must, then she had to know the truth. It would not change her plans. There was no way to go back and no point wishing things had turned out differently.

  Lucy lifted the chair to one side and knelt down, regarding the stair’s rise.

  It really was an ingenious design. There was no way anyone would find it if they did not know that it was there. During the Reformation, when Catholic priests were hunted by the Queen’s men, such places must have provided great comfort and safety. She had researched since and found that six men’s lives were saved by this very priest hole.

  Bracing herself, Lucy pressed the edges of the rise and opened the trapdoor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  As soon as she had looked inside the secret chamber, Lucy closed the panel again. Emotions, suppressed for so long, overwhelmed her and she let out a single great hiccupping gulp of grief: for all the years since finding the diamond, in which she’d carried alone the secret knowledge of what she’d done; for Lily Millington, who had been kind to her and who had loved her brother; and most of all, for Edward, with whom she had broken faith, leaving him all alone in the world by believing the inspector’s story.

  When she could finally breathe again, Lucy went downstairs. She had known in her heart what she would find within the staircase hideaway. More importantly, she had known in her head. Lucy prided herself on being a rational woman: she had thus come armed with a plan. She had gone through each of the eventualities from the safe distance of London, and devised a clear set of tasks. She had thought herself prepared. But it was different, being here; Lucy’s hand was shaking too much to write the planned letter to Mr Rich Middleton of Duke Street, Chelsea. She hadn’t counted on that, the way her hands would shake.

  And so she went for a walk to the river to steady her nerves. She reached the jetty sooner than she had expected and headed towards the woods. Without meaning to, Lucy realised that she was tracing, in reverse, the very path that she had run that day, from the photo shoot back to the house.

  Within the copse was the clear spot in the woods where Felix had planned to take the photograph. She could picture them all now in their costumes. She could almost see herself, thirteen years old and filled with the burn of injustice, darting off across the wildflower meadow towards the house. Soon to find the diamond pendant, to take it from its velvet box and put it at her own neck, to show Lily Millington the hiding place and start the terrible ball rolling. But no; she refused to see her phantom thirteen-year-old self take flight. Lucy walked back towards the river instead.

  When she had discovered the Radcliffe Blue within her suitcase in London, she had known immediately that she had to hide it; the trouble was deciding where. She had considered burying it on Hampstead Heath, putting it down a drain, throwing it into the duck pond in the Vale of Health – but her conscience picked holes in every idea that she had. She knew it was irrational to imagine that a wily dog might somehow discern the very place that she had buried the jewel, dig it up, and then carry it home; or that a duck might eat it, digest it, and then deposit it on the bank for an eagle-eyed child to find. It was equally irrational to believe that if such an unlikely scenario were to occur, the diamond would then be traced back to her. But guilt, Lucy had learned, was the least rational of the emotions.

  And, in truth, the rediscovered heirloom leading attention back to Lucy was only part of her worry. What mattered more to her, and did so increasingly with each passing year, was how much suffering would have been for naught if the official scenario were now to be disproved. Lucy could not bear to think that Edward’s wandering might have been prevented; that if she had told the truth sooner he might have grieved for the loss of Lily Millington, but that he might then have been able to put her to rest and get on with his life.

  No, the diamond had to stay hidden so that the story would continue to be believed. It had all gone too far now for anything else to be acceptable. But Lucy would know. And she alone would live with her knowledge. Given that there was no way of going back in time to do things differently, eternal guilt and isolation seemed like a fitting punishment.

  She had intended to put the pendant in the box with everything else, but now, suddenly, as she stood by the edge of the Thames, such a different river here from the one she knew in London, she felt a need to be rid of it even sooner. The river was the perfect place. The earth gave up her secrets easily, but the river would carry its treasure out to the fathomless sea.

  Lucy put her hand into her pocket and withdrew the Radcliffe Blue pendant. Such a brilliant stone. So very rare.

  She held it up to the light one last time. And then she threw it into the river and started back towards the house.

  The box arrived four days later. Lucy had placed the order in London before she left, telling the man that she would write again to let him know when and where she needed the item delivered. She had considered the possibility that the order would be unnecessary, the money wasted, but the odds, she decided, were not in her favour.

  She chose a coffin-maker and undertaker by the name of Mr Rich Middleton of Duke Street, Chelsea, giving him specific instructions as to the unusually small dimensions required, along with a short list of other specifications.

  ‘Triple lead-lined?’ he’d said, scratching the thatch of hair beneath his tattered black top hat. ‘You’ll not be wanting all that, surely? Not for an infant’s coffin.’

  ‘I said nothing about an infant, Mr Middleton, and I did not ask for your opinion. I have told you my requirements; if you are unable to meet them, I shall take my business elsewhere.’

  He held up his pinkish, soft-looking hands, and said, ‘It’s your coin. If you want triple lead-lined, then that’s what you’ll have, Miss … ?’

  ‘Millington. Miss L. Millington.’

  It was a brazen choice, and an unusual nod to sentiment. But she could hardly give her real name. Besides, Edward was dead and it had been twenty years since Fanny was shot. No one else was looking for Lily Millington, not any more.

  When he’d finished writing down the details, Lucy had him read them back to her. Satisfied, she asked him to draw up an account so that she could make a payment.

  ‘Will you be requiring a cortè
ge? Some mutes?’

  Lucy told him that she would not.

  The small coffin, when it arrived at Birchwood Manor, was brought grudgingly by a railway porter who struggled to lift it from the cart. It had been packed in a wooden travel crate and there was no outward indication of what it was that he was delivering; the man was maladroit enough to ask. ‘A bird bath,’ Lucy told him. ‘Marble, I’m afraid.’ Generous gratuity was paid, after which the man’s spirit improved considerably. He even agreed to move it closer to its intended position, the garden bed to the side of the front gate. It was where Lily Millington had been standing on the day that Lucy, looking for Edward to tell him about the secret hideaways, had found Lily instead on her way to post a letter. ‘I want to be able to see it from as many windows as possible,’ Lucy told the railway porter, even though this time she had been asked no question.

  When he had gone, she opened the travel crate to inspect its contents. Her first impressions were that Mr Rich Middleton of Duke Street, Chelsea, had done a very good job. Lead was essential. Lucy had no way of knowing how long the box would remain hidden, but having spent her life reading obsessively about the treasures of the past, she knew that lead did not corrode. She wanted to hide things, certainly; she hoped that they would remain concealed for a very long time; but she could not bring herself to destroy them. To that end, Lucy had specified that the lid must seal securely. Too often, archaeologists uncovered pots that had survived the ages, only to open them and find that the contents within had perished. She did not want air or water finding their way inside. The coffin must not leak or rust, and it must not crack over time. For it would be found one day, of that she was certain.