by Helen Peters
“If you’re holding this,” I said, “anyone who sees you will think you’re going to empty it on the compost heap. So walk in that direction and hide it in the woods once you’re out of sight. Then get away as fast as you can.”
Sophia was scrutinising me. “If you keep your hair around your face,” she said, “and do not look directly at the servants – no, better still, stay face down on the bed when a servant is in the room – yes, if you make sure you do not show your face to anybody, then I think all will be well.”
“It will be fine,” I said. “Now you really must go. Good luck. With everything.”
She gave me a quick, fierce hug. “Thank you, Evie. You have been so very good to me. I shall remember you always.”
“Make sure you bolt the door behind you,” I said. “And don’t forget this.” I held out the chamber pot and smiled. “It’s your passport to the outside world.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
A Discovery
Birds were singing outside the window.
It felt late. Why hadn’t Polly woken me?
I opened my eyes a fraction and peered out blurrily.
My stomach churned.
I was in Sophia’s room, in Sophia’s clothes, in Sophia’s bed.
Why hadn’t I gone back to the present? Had Sophia been caught?
But she couldn’t have been. Because if she had been caught, then I would have been caught too.
I went cold all over. Why had I never thought of this before? If Sophia was caught, then I would be found out as an impersonator, and I would be hanged without a shadow of a doubt. That was if Sir Henry didn’t shoot me or whip me to death first.
I burrowed down into the bedclothes, my head in my hands. My throat tightened and I couldn’t breathe.
I hadn’t gone back to the present. I hadn’t made anything better. Things were as bad as they could possibly be. Not only was I stuck in the past, but now I had become Sophia Fane. And I would either be found out and killed, or I would be locked in this room for the rest of my life.
Footsteps sounded along the corridor. Sophia’s dressing-room door opened. I forced myself to breathe, fighting the tightness in my throat and chest.
“I always thought there was something strange about her,” said a voice. “Something a bit odd.”
“Well, I liked her,” said Polly. “She was a terrible scatterbrain, but she was kind and she made me laugh. I shall miss her.”
“She took her box, did she?”
It was Mary’s voice. Had Mary replaced me already?
“She had no box,” said Polly. “She came with nothing but the clothes she stood up in.”
“You see,” said Mary, “it’s very odd. Everyone but the poorest scrap of a workhouse girl has a box. And she didn’t look a bit like a pauper. Bursting with health, she looked.”
“Her teeth were lovely,” said Polly. “Whiter than pearls, they were.”
“And yet she came with nothing and she left with nothing. It makes no sense. I’d have thought she’d have told you something, at least.”
I felt terrible. I’d desperately wanted to leave Polly a letter. Even though she couldn’t read yet, she could have asked George to read it aloud to her. I had sneaked a piece of paper from Sir Henry’s desk while I was dusting his study yesterday, but then Mrs Hardwick came in before I could find a pencil. So I had left Polly without a word.
But at least I could write her a letter while I was locked up in here, and leave it for her to find.
“Maybe she’ll come back,” said Polly.
Mary snorted. “Can you imagine Hardwitch taking her back after she’s run off like that? She was in enough trouble before.”
“She’ll have gone to her mother in London,” Polly said. “Homesick, she was, I think, though she tried to hide it.”
“Ah,” said Mary. “So she bolted. Like that little thing we had last year – what was her name?”
“Sarah,” said Polly. “Poor little scrap. Only eight, she was. I wonder what became of her.”
“I need to be getting back to the laundry,” said Mary, “or I’ll never get done.”
“Thanks for giving me a hand,” said Polly. “It’s no fun doing this alone. I hope Hardwitch finds somebody else soon.”
“Well, with any luck she’ll find somebody better than Evie.”
“She was a shocking housemaid,” said Polly as they left the room. “Couldn’t even light a fire. But she was teaching me to read and write. I don’t reckon the next one will be able to do that.”
It was so weird to hear people talk about me as though I wasn’t there. As though I was no longer in their lives.
And I was no longer in their lives, was I?
Or I was, but not as Evie.
Panic rose in me again. I pushed the heavy bedclothes off and made myself take deep, slow breaths. And a glimmer of hope flickered inside my head. Sophia had said it would be a week before they were back from Scotland and living in London under new names. So maybe I would just be stuck in the past for a week, until they were safe.
“The master’s having bars put on the window tomorrow,” said Mary. “Not that she’d have a hope of escaping through there. Not if she wanted to make it out alive.”
A little voice wormed its way into my mind. You’re Sophia Fane now. And Sophia Fane was locked in here for the rest of her life.
I pushed the thought away.
It was easier than I had expected to spend whole days lying face down on the bed, my hair spread over the pillows in a tangled mess, drifting in and out of sleep. I stayed face down whenever Polly or Mary came in with the food tray, cringing with embarrassment as they took away my chamber pot.
When Polly came in alone, I ached to confide in her. It was torture to have her so close and yet not to be able to speak. But if she knew, then she would be in terrible danger too. So I stayed face down on the bed and said nothing.
Sometimes I wondered who I was. Everyone here thought I was Sophia, of course. I knew I wasn’t Sophia, but I didn’t feel like myself either.
I wasn’t Evie the housemaid any longer: that Evie had disappeared. But neither was I the twenty-first century Evie, who lived in London with her mother. Did that Evie even exist any more? Had she ever existed? What if this was reality, and that life had all been a dream?
Was I going mad?
During the long afternoons, when no servant came near my room, I sat in the chair by the window, looking out over the gardens, just as Sophia had done when she was scratching those words on the glass.
The gardens were changing every day. New leaves unfurled on the trees; the grass deepened to a brighter shade of green; flowers blossomed in the sun. I opened the window, smelled the fresh air and felt the breeze on my face. Sometimes, when the wind was in the right direction, I even caught the scent of flowers. But it was nothing like actually walking through the gardens, feeling the grass under my feet, stroking the velvety apple blossom, seeing a robin so close that I could make out its individual feathers, watching the sun’s rays light on a dewdrop and create a tiny rainbow in its glittering sphere.
Sleeping in snatches, spending tortured hours awake in the middle of the night and dozing through the mornings, time became muddled. What date was it? Had it been a week yet? I needed to start recording the days.
I went to Sophia’s desk and took out a quill pen, a bottle of ink and a couple of sheets of writing paper. I would write to Polly too, and leave the letter under my pillow for her to find if I ever did go back to the present.
The door at the end of the corridor opened. Footsteps approached. I gathered up the writing things and dived under the bedcovers with them. I spread my hair over my face and tucked my work-ruined hands out of sight.
Voices. Polly, definitely. And it sounded like George and William.
The bolts slid back and the door opened.
“You don’t really think they would have, do you?” said Polly in a hushed voice.
“Shh, Miss Fane’s s
leeping,” said William.
“She’s always sleeping,” said George. “I reckon he’s drugged her.”
“Don’t say things like that,” said Polly.
George laughed. “You’re a fine one to talk.”
“I wasn’t gossiping about the family. Now, which furniture are you meant to be taking?”
“All of it,” said George. “And the pictures and ornaments. She’s to be left with nothing but the bed, the master said.”
“Poor thing,” said Polly. “It really will be a prison. She’s been locked up for eight days and it must already feel like a lifetime to her. How can he think of keeping her locked up for the rest of her life? She’ll be driven mad.”
Eight days since Sophia was locked up. I had swapped places with her the day after it happened, so I had been here exactly a week. If things had worked out, then Sophia and Robbie should be safely married and back in London by now. Did that mean I might be able to go back to the present tonight?
“Let’s move the dressing table first,” said William. “Clear all this stuff off the top, Polly.”
I heard drawers being opened and things being moved around.
“But do you really think they would have done?” asked Polly in a lower voice. “Robbie and Evie?”
I stiffened.
“Well, it’s all over the village,” said George.
“But do you believe it?”
“It seems a bit of a coincidence, that’s all I’m saying. Both of them disappearing on the same night. Slipped out of his aunt’s cottage without a word, he did. Told his aunt he was going to bed. She only discovered he was gone when he didn’t appear the next morning.”
“And that was the same night Evie disappeared?”
“The very same.”
Nobody spoke for a minute. I heard the sounds of ornaments being taken off the mantelpiece.
“He was a bit odd, that Robbie,” said George. “Never seemed to quite fit in here.”
“He was very gentle,” said Polly. “I liked him. He was kind.”
“That’s what I mean. He was different. Never joined in any of the wrestling or sport. Always reading or drawing.”
“Well, I hope they’ve both found something better than this,” said Polly. They worked in silence for a while, and then she said, “It’s strange how people come and go. I never even knew Evie’s surname. Or Robbie’s, come to that.”
“Robbie told me his,” said William. “I remembered it because it was unusual. Robbie Tregarron, he was.”
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
“Tregarron?” said Polly. “What a funny name.”
“That’s what I said. He said it was Cornish.”
Goose pimples prickled all over my body.
“Not that he’d ever lived in Cornwall,” said William. “But his father came from a tiny Cornish hamlet. Then the place was infected with smallpox and his father’s family all died. The hamlet was wiped out. Like a ghost village, it was. Robbie’s father left and went to London. Walked the whole way. Took him weeks, sleeping in hedgerows and living on berries. But he found work in London and married there, and that’s where Robbie was born.”
“And then Robbie’s whole family died too,” said Polly.
“Yes,” said William. “Robbie said he was the only Tregarron still alive.”
“Better get this chest moved,” said George. “You take that end, Will.”
Polly’s sleeve brushed mine as she reached under the bed for the chamber pot. And then they all left, and the bolts were drawn across the door again.
I pulled myself upright. My heart was beating so fast I could hardly breathe.
Only one family with that name. From a hamlet in Cornwall.
Robbie was my ancestor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A Parting
I was filled with a crazy, restless energy. I swung my legs out of bed. I had to move.
Up and down the room I walked, repeating the names over and over in my head.
Robbie Tregarron. Evie Tregarron.
And then I had a thought that stopped me in my tracks.
If Robbie and Sophia had got married, then Sophia Fane was now Sophia Tregarron. So that was why Mum and I looked so like Sophia. She was our ancestor too. And so was their baby.
Was that why the ghost had only appeared to me and Mum? Because only somebody deeply connected with Sophia, and who looked so similar to her, could travel back in time and swap places with her so that she could escape?
Thirteen years ago, Mum had refused Sophia’s summons. But I had accepted it. And it looked as though my purpose had actually been achieved at last. So might I be able to go home?
It was very late and my candle had burned down to a tiny stump. George and William had been in and out of the room all afternoon, stripping it of Sophia’s possessions, so it was evening before I was able to start my letter to Polly. It was partly to thank her for everything, and partly to encourage her to continue reading and writing so she could get to be a housekeeper one day.
As well as that letter, I wrote a note in an imitation of Sophia’s handwriting, using the writing on the window as my guide. The note explained that Evie had given the letter to Sophia for safekeeping, to pass on to Polly when the time was right.
I blew on the paper to dry the ink, and then I took Sophia’s two gold coins from my pocket, placed them in the middle of the paper and folded the sheets around the money. On the outside I wrote Polly’s name, and then I slipped the letter with the money inside it under my pillow, along with the schoolbooks I had taken from Sophia’s cupboard.
The stable clock struck midnight. And it seemed as if the world was suddenly covered with a blanket of silence.
Tap, tap, tap.
My heart stopped.
The tapping sounded again.
Dizzy with anticipation, I got out of bed, walked to the window and drew back the curtains.
And there was Sophia outside the window, in her white nightdress. She didn’t look wild and desperate any more. The expression on her face was calm and serene.
She placed her left hand on the window, exactly as she had done before. I placed my right hand against the glass to meet it. And then I saw, on her fourth finger, a slim gold wedding ring.
Her eyes met mine and she smiled. As I smiled back, she began to fade away, her features melting into the moonlit night.
“No,” I whispered. “Don’t go.”
But a cloud passed across the moon and Sophia dissolved into the darkness.
I stood at the window, staring into the night, willing her to come back. But I knew she wouldn’t. She was married to Robbie now, and she would be able to keep her baby.
All of a sudden a fog came over my brain. My limbs felt heavy and I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to stumble into bed and lay my head on the pillow. As I sank into the mattress, I thought I heard the high metallic strike of Anna’s living-room clock, chiming the strokes of midnight.
PART
THREE
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verses 1–8
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A Time to Mourn
Swish, clatter, swish, clatter, swish.
Strange. Somebody was washing dishes r
eally close to my room.
My bed felt different. The room smelled different.
I opened my eyes and my heart missed a beat. My suitcase lay open on the floor, my clothes strewn around it. The sound of a radio mingled with the washing-up noises. Outside, a car swooshed past.
I shrieked with delight. I was back! Really back! Back in the twenty-first century!
Joy and relief washed over me in waves. It had worked! I had done what I needed to do, and I was back in my own life again. Back in the world of running water and wifi and friends and TV and flushing toilets and central heating and chocolate and crisps and phones and Mum. Real life.
My life.
I whirled around the room with sheer happiness until I got so dizzy that I crashed into the wall. I was about to run into the living room (I was so happy that I could even have hugged Anna) when I caught a whiff of my own smell, and realised I was not in a fit state to encounter another human being. Not in the twenty-first century anyway.
I stood in the shower and stared at the water pouring down on me. What an incredible invention. Hot running water, as much as you needed, right there, in the pipes, waiting for you to turn on the tap. No fires, no coppers, no cans to be carried up and down stairs, no slops to be taken out to the garden. Just clean hot water, whenever you needed it. And the dirty water washed away, out of sight, without anyone having to lift a finger. In every house in the country.
Why didn’t people talk more about this miracle?
It felt amazing to be clean again, and to smell of shower gel and shampoo instead of vinegar and soot. I put on a pair of jeans and a jumper and headed for the kitchen.
Anna had cleared a space around the skull at the dining table. A notebook lay open in front of her, the page covered in scrawly handwriting. She was leafing through a pile of large black-and-white photos. She glanced up as I walked in.