Don’t let him fall … don’t let him fall.
She was out of breath before she made it to the top of the second flight, but she pushed on, refusing to abate her speed, the litany repeating over and again as she reached the last flight and halted briefly. Panting, she looked up the narrow stair to the open door at the top that let onto the roof at last, her ears strained to hear anything from that quarter.
No screams assailed her ears. That meant at least Tamasine had neither fallen, nor thrown her nephew to a shattering end. With renewed hope, she ascended the last stair, slipping quickly between the elevations and stopping just at the edge of the open roof space. A residue of caution kept her silent and still, listening out for any sign of life.
The soft sing-song came as balm at first, and then gave rise to a resurgence of dread. That was Tamasine. But what of Tom?
Ottilia peeped around the edge of the wall and lost her breath again. Tamasine was alone, still standing on the parapet and swaying dangerously.
Where was Tom?
Creeping, she slipped onto the roof, her back to the wall. Revulsion drenched her as she caught sight of the harsh streaks and spots of red stain down the front of Tamasine’s white gown. Blood. Mrs Whiting’s blood. The madwoman had taken her revenge.
A scrabbling above Ottilia’s head drew the girl’s attention. Shrinking against the wall, Ottilia formed an instant hope. She wanted to call out, to assure herself it was her nephew, but she did not dare. Tamasine had not yet seen her.
She held her breath. The girl seemed calm enough, even a trifle too calm. She watched as Tamasine raised a wavering hand and one of her high-pitched squealing laughs emerged.
“I see you!”
Had she noticed Ottilia? No, for her gaze was concentrated at a higher point. She crooked her finger towards it.
“Come, come, come, come … dance with me! I am the sugar princess and I want to dance…”
So saying, she half fell, half jumped from the parapet, landing awkwardly and staggering several steps across the roof. Ottilia let her breath go very gently indeed, her eyes never leaving the girl’s face. It was pallid, save for a splatter of blood spots which stood out against the shine on her skin.
Shine? Ottilia’s mind leapt. Was she sweating? Unsteady on her feet too. The obvious conclusion came as comfort and misery both. She had overdosed on laudanum. Or had been given an overdose? Yes, that was it. Mrs Whiting had done her damnedest and been punished for it. The poor, demented child had seized her chance. Crazed indeed, Tamasine had taken her reckoning.
Even with the realisation, Tamasine seemed to recover herself. Of a sudden, Ottilia found the girl’s china blue eyes, glassy with triumph, fixed upon hers.
“Lady Fan, Lady Fan, Lady Fan.”
From above Ottilia, an anxious voice called out.
“Auntilla? Is that you?”
Without thought, Ottilia moved out into the roof space, keeping to one side to avoid Tamasine, but not close enough to the edge to put herself in danger. She flicked a glance upwards and saw Tom clinging monkey-like to the roof slates near a chimney.
On instinct, she called out. “Stay there, Tom! Hold on!”
Even as she turned, Tamasine came hurtling towards her, menace in her eyes, hands flailing. Acting on instinct, Ottilia seized hold of them as the girl reached her, gripping the cold fingers hard. The impact sent her backwards, but she rallied, realising Tamasine’s ability to hold steady was impaired. Riding on sheer necessity, she raised her voice to a high pitch.
“Tamasine, Tamasine, Tamasine! Dance with me, Tamasine!”
The girl squealed, delight superseding the menace in the wide blue gaze.
“Dance with me, Tamasine,” Ottilia repeated, and moved, dropping one hand and sliding into position by the girl’s side as if she took a partner for the dance. “See, it is the minuet. Follow with me. Nice and slow now, here we go. And…”
She held the girl’s hand high and, despite a fast-beating pulse, began a stately set of fleurets across the roof space, leading Tamasine along with her and counting as they went.
“Step and step and step, and then dip, my dear. Follow with me! There we go. Step, step, step and dip. Heel to heel on the dip. Very good. You are a natural, Tamasine.”
The high-pitched laughter sounded as Tamasine picked up the rhythm, inexpertly, but well enough to manage a semblance of the dance, singing out as was her wont.
“I am dancing, dancing, dancing… I am dancing, dancing, dancing.”
Ottilia thought fast as they approached the end of the available space.
“And now we turn. Nice and wide, my dear, and step and turn, and step and turn, and step and here we are straight again, and dip into our curtsy. Oh, lovely, Tamasine, you are doing so very well.”
Tamasine released her hand for the purpose of clapping wildly. Or attempting to, missing as her fingers flapped past each other. She staggered slightly and Ottilia grabbed her hand again.
“Steady, now. Let us dance some more.”
Nothing loath, Tamasine complied with her instructions to step and dip, laughing merrily as she went. The space ran out again and Ottilia made the turn, hoping to heaven she could keep the girl dancing long enough for the laudanum to do its work. Across the roof they travelled, turning at each end, until Ottilia’s voice counting the steps and the rhythm began to feel hoarse, her calves and thighs aching from the unaccustomed exertion.
Still Tamasine danced, crying out now and then that she was dancing, but becoming momently more breathless, more readily losing her footing. Ottilia’s heart bled for her but she had to keep her happily occupied if she was to bring herself and Tom off safe. There was no saying how far along the road to oblivion she yet was. And there was no sign of Hemp to relieve her.
“And step and step and step, and here comes the dip again, and off we go … step and step and step…”
Again came the turn. Again the roof space proved too short. Ottilia did not dare change the rhythm to encompass a circle instead. Who knew what change might do? Tamasine’s compliance must be solely due to the drug. But how much had she imbibed? Impossible to guess, although the girl’s gradual decline indicated Mrs Whiting had been thorough.
“I am dancing, dancing, dancing…”
The song became plaintive, losing both volume and strength, and at last disappeared altogether as Tamasine’s fingers slid out of Ottilia’s clutch and the girl began to turn on the spot in the old way, raising her hands and watching her fingers wiggling against the light.
Ottilia made no attempt to recapture her. It was obvious Tamasine was spent. No danger remained for her strength was visibly ebbing as she turned and turned, her fingers twinkling in the light just as they had that far-off day when Ottilia first beheld her dancing in the snow. Time rolled back and all the horror of the days since receded in the well of compassion flooding her breast.
Then Tamasine stopped moving altogether. For a moment she stood as if petrified, like a statue frozen in time. Then she swayed.
Ottilia leapt to catch her, breaking her fall as the girl slowly sank, her knees giving way beneath her. The weight rapidly overburdened Ottilia and she was obliged to obey the dictates of her own body, ending on the cold stone with Tamasine captured in her arms.
She guided the fair head onto her knees, despite the awkwardness and discomfort of her position, and offered words as empty as the comfort she tried to infuse into them.
“There, there, my dear, it is over now. It is all over…”
The lovely countenance, pallid and still, blue eyes gazing fixedly at the sky, grew misty in Ottilia’s vision as time seemed to stop, her whisper the only sound.
“Poor little fairy, poor little sugar princess.”
Quite when Tamasine ceased to breathe she could not tell, but presently a waxy tinge began to overspread the pale skin. Ottilia’s tears were still falling and the world felt far away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Milady, let me come there.”
Ottilia blinked back to awareness and looked up. Hemp, his features ravaged, was standing over her. Ottilia caught her breath on a sob.
“Oh, Hemp, I am so very sorry!”
He dropped to his haunches. With the utmost gentleness, he lifted Tamasine off Ottilia and caught her close to his chest, his gaze fixed on the dead face as he dropped to the roof floor and cradled the girl in his brawny arms. He said not a word, but Ottilia saw the tears begin to trace down his cheeks and her heart broke for him.
Not wishing to intrude on his grief, she pulled away and scrambled untidily to her feet, feeling her limbs protesting and a sudden penetration of cold. Looking up she saw Tom had slid down to the edge of the slated roof, sitting above the elevation.
“Look out, Auntilla! I’m coming down!”
Alarmed, Ottilia started forward. “Tom, it’s too high!”
But her nephew dropped, rolled and sprang to his feet again, not a penny the worse. In body at least. As Ottilia reached him, he flung his arms about her and she caught him close, feeling the tremble as his limbs began to shake.
Ottilia released him and took him by the shoulders. “Come, let us go away from here, Tom.”
“Yes, please, Auntilla.”
There was a sob in his voice and Ottilia put an arm about his shoulders as she hustled him along the path between the elevations to the open door leading down into the house. As they reached the bottom of the flight, a deep-throated howl sounded from the roof.
Tom shuddered. “Is that Hemp?”
“Tamasine was his sister, Tom.”
Tom stared up at her, open-mouthed. But Ottilia was too distressed to indulge in further explanations. Moreover, with the world coming in on her again, she was all too conscious of the dreadful aftermath of these appalling events still to be faced.
“Let us go down, Tom. You may tell me what happened on the way.”
His teeth were chattering by this time, and he was shaking a little as he related his adventures. Much to Ottilia’s admiration, it appeared that he had not lost his head when Tamasine bolted the door.
“Ben yelled he was going for help, and I knew she’d gone into one of her mad fits, Auntilla, so I kept back by the window. She didn’t come at me and I kept my eyes on her and didn’t look at the body, though it made me feel quite sick when I saw what she’d done to that fat woman.”
“I am not at all surprised,” Ottilia encouraged him. “How did you manage to keep Tamasine from hurting you?”
“The m-mattresses, Auntilla! I re-remembered how she liked to mess things up, and I started digging out straw and throwing it about.”
“How very clever of you, Tom! Did she follow suit?”
“Straight off she did. She was shrieking with laughter, the way she does, you know, and she bounced about, throwing the straw everywhere. So I just kept on doing it and shrieking too, so she would think it was a game.”
A macabre game with the blood-stained body of Mrs Whiting lying in the attic room, but Ottilia refrained from saying so.
“How did she come to get you onto the roof?”
“Oh, she said she would take me to her eyrie, which was funny because I thought that place was her eyrie. And she unbolted the door. I thought then I might escape, but she grabbed my wrist. Auntilla, she’s so strong! Even Ben couldn’t hold me that tightly!”
“Yes, your papa says abnormal strength is one of the aspects of that sort of insanity.”
“Well, all I know is I couldn’t get free, so I just let her take me where she wanted. I was afraid if I tried to pull away she would hit me over the head like she did that woman.”
“Is that how she killed her?”
Tom shuddered again. “She did it with one of the bars from the window. And don’t ask how she got it out, ’cause I can’t tell you. But it was lying on the floor and it was all bloody and horrible.”
They were approaching the main staircase when heavy footsteps sounded from below. Ottilia paused, catching Tom’s shoulder to keep him still. In a moment, Cuffy came into view, taking the stairs at a run. He stopped short at sight of the pair in the gallery.
“Madame! You are safe?”
“Yes, Cuffy, and Tom too, as you see.”
His gaze shot up as another howl, now distant, sounded from above. He threw a questioning glance at Ottilia. She gave him the word without embellishment.
“Tamasine is dead. Hemp is with her.”
Uttering a low growl in a foreign tongue, Cuffy slid past and pounded off along the gallery and up the next flight. The heaviness in her bosom lightened a little. At least the footman might succeed in comforting his fellow. She set her hand to her nephew’s shoulder again.
“Come, Tom.”
The boy did not speak as they moved to turn into the main stairs. Just as they started down, a well-known tall figure raced through the front door, closely followed by her other nephew.
“Papa!” shrieked Tom.
Patrick skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs as his son tumbled down them and threw himself into his father’s embrace. The ensuing cacophony of reunion, accompanied by Tom’s hiccupping sobs and Ben’s yelps of joy brought tears to Ottilia’s eyes again.
Suddenly dog-tired, she sank down to sit on the stairs, clutching at the banister rail as she listened to the excited retelling of Tom’s incarceration by the madwoman, as he insisted on calling Tamasine. She heard this time how he had managed to get away after the girl had dragged him onto the parapet, with a threat of jumping off.
“I don’t think she would have jumped really. But she said we would jump and I said we should jump the other way first just to make sure we could do it. She started to turn and I managed to slip out of her hold. I ran along the wall and climbed onto the roof as fast as I could. I thought she would follow me, but she didn’t. And then I thought she was going to fall, but she managed to keep her balance. And then Auntilla came and danced with her and she died and…”
Ottilia closed her eyes, the remembrance of Tamasine’s last moments coming back with a vengeance. It was so unfair! The child had likely been driven even more demented by the application of increasing doses of laudanum. If only they had never brought her to England. Although, would that have served? Even then Mrs Whiting had the fixed intention of taking her life whenever she became too difficult to manage. Just so had she served the wretched Florine.
“Tillie?”
Her eyes snapped open to a sudden flash of déjà vu. An eon ago she had been sitting on the stairs at the end of the first such adventure and Francis had asked her to marry him.
“Oh, Fan, thank heavens you’ve come!”
He sat down beside her and drew her close against him. “I wish I’d never gone.” His face changed. “Dear Lord, you’re freezing, Tillie! Here, let me warm you up.”
Hours passed before Ottilia was able to satisfy the hungry curiosity of the inmates of the Dower House. With the recovery of her faculties, a number of urgencies overtook her and she was obliged to enlist her spouse’s services.
“Delaney, Fan. Or is it Lovell now? He must be sent for at once. The coroner too.”
Francis released her and stood up. “I’ll send Giles. He drove me back and should have gone around to the stables by this time. Come, Tillie. You will take cold sitting on the stairs.”
She allowed him to pull her to her feet, holding together the edges of his coat which he had stripped off to wrap about her shoulders. Her mind was already busy with the next problem as she descended the flight.
“And Summerton too, I think. We cannot rely upon Patrick at this juncture.”
But her brother, still holding his younger son in his arms, looked up at that moment. “Let me but take Tom and Ben to Sophie and I will come and take a look at the bodies.”
“I’ll look to Tom, Papa,” said Ben, sounding decidedly grown-up. “You have duties here.”
Ottilia’s heart warmed. No trace remained of the desperate child who had run to her in fear of his brothe
r’s life. But the mention of bodies brought the other appalling happening to mind and she seized Patrick’s arm as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Mrs Whiting must not be moved! The Justice ought to see her exactly where she is.”
Patrick released Tom into his elder son’s charge. “I’ll see to that. Go to your mother, Tom, there’s a good lad.” He lowered his voice as the boys headed for the front door. “What about the girl?”
Ottilia’s throat constricted for a moment. “Hemp is bound to bring her down. She cannot be left on the roof.”
“Then I’d best instruct the footmen to put her in her bedchamber.” He was gone on the words, taking the flight two steps at a time.
Francis slipped his arm around Ottilia again. “Will you sit in the parlour until I get back?”
“No, Fan, I will come with you if you mean to go through the servants’ quarters. I must go to Mrs Whiting’s room.”
“What the devil for? Can’t it wait?”
But Ottilia was already moving in the direction of the baize door at the back of the hall. “Too important, Fan. Do you get to the stables and catch Giles before he takes it into his head to come into the house. I don’t think it would be good for him to see Tamasine, do you?”
Her spouse looked at once grim. “Decidedly not.”
Ottilia slipped off his coat and gave it to him. “Take this, Fan. I am warmed up now.”
He shrugged it on, told her he would join her in the housekeeper’s room the moment he had sent Giles upon his errand, and departed down the long corridor leading through the domestic offices.
Ottilia followed more slowly, trying to dismiss from her churning mind the more lurid of the morning’s memories. A clatter of pots and pans indicated the stirring events of the immediate past had not yet penetrated to the nether regions. The oddity of this heightened a growing sense of unreality. Even the fact of Mrs Whiting’s murder seemed remote now.
She was glad to think it would be Patrick and not herself who witnessed Tamasine’s handiwork. She was not normally squeamish, but she found it profoundly affecting to think of the child’s vengeful act after holding her while she breathed her last. Poor little sugar princess indeed. It was hard to blame her, painful to think of the viciousness existing within that tortured mind. Better perhaps to remember the childish delight, the gleeful silvery laughter and the occasional amusement of her non sequitur utterances.
The Opium Purge (Lady Fan Mystery Book 3) Page 34