Princess Alice shook her head sorrowfully. ‘The Queen has decided that my father is not gone. She says she will continue to rule with him, even if he has moved into another, better life. My mother believes he speaks to her from the dead. She made us hold a séance the other day.’
Katie choked back nervous laughter. Was the Queen of Great Britain really ruling the country through séances?
James gave her a grim look. ‘It’s not funny, Katie, the Queen has been behaving in a very erratic manner. She talks to herself – or rather says she’s talking to her husband. She won’t eat much. She refuses to see any of the government – not even the Prime Minister. She sleeps very little, wrapped in Prince Albert’s nightshirt. She says it still smells of him.’
Princess Alice became rather stiff at this last piece of information and eyed Bernardo DuQuelle under lowered lashes. ‘James, there was no need to reveal that last bit of . . .’
‘I am sorry,’ James interrupted. ‘But DuQuelle and Katie have to know just how serious the situation has become. The Queen is saying she will never appear in public again, and the country will stay in mourning forever. She has ordered all the rails in the parks throughout the country to be painted black. Her natural depression is turning to hysteria.’
DuQuelle looked serious. ‘How are the doctors treating her?’ he asked.
James was silent. It was his turn to be embarrassed. ‘We had thought, with the misdiagnosis of my father; that perhaps Sir Brendan would leave the Royal Household. The Queen, for some reason, continues to hold him in high esteem. She has ordered the other doctors to withdraw. He is the only doctor she will see . . .’
As long as the other doctors had attended the Queen, they had felt safe. But they had been outwitted, by a man they had thought a fool. For Sir Brendan to have control of the Queen, in this weakened state, was disastrous.
‘And what is Sir Brendan’s diagnosis?’ DuQuelle asked with much irony.
James had turned a dull, angry red. When Alice spoke, her voice shook. ‘Early this morning I received a note from Sir Brendan. He said that, even if I am her eldest daughter living at home, my attendance at the Queen’s side was hindering her recovery. He said she must be removed, not just from my presence, but from Windsor Castle.’
‘Where has Sir Brendan taken the Queen?’ Katie asked.
Alice was looking more and more distressed. ‘James and I both thought he would take her to Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight. It’s where we always had our seaside holidays. This did make some sense. It was still her home, but the scene of happier times. And we thought the sea air would do her good.’
‘But . . . there’s a but . . .’ Katie said.
Princess Alice nodded. ‘I assumed she would travel with her retinue, the ladies-in-waiting, her dresser, chambermaids, cooks. But when I conferred with Lady Augusta Stanley, the Queen’s lady of the bedchamber, she had received an identical note from Sir Brendan. I telegraphed immediately to Osborne House. They have been informed of no such visit and the Queen has not arrived!’ This was serious indeed.
‘Shouldn’t you do something like call the police?’ Katie asked. ‘I’m mean, that’s what we’d do: the missing person’s bureau.’
DuQuelle shook his head. ‘We need to keep this quiet. The nation is already unsettled by the death of Prince Albert. There is great sympathy for the Queen, but unease about the future. If the people thought she would not, or could not rule, there would be rioting in the streets.’ He looked at the three faces before him, and sighed. They were so young. ‘We will find the Queen,’ he said to reassure them, ‘and we will bring her to her senses.’
‘How do you hide the Queen?’ Katie asked. ‘I mean, it’s not like people don’t know what she looks like. Mimi would give half her life, or gain thirty pounds, to have Queen Victoria’s kind of recognizable celebrity.’
DuQuelle took off his top hat and examined the rim. ‘Perhaps it is a sleight of hand,’ he said. ‘The rabbit out of the hat. Smoke and mirrors. It could be that the Queen wanted to be hidden.’ They all thought this over.
Then Alice gave a stifled gasp. ‘He wouldn’t . . .’ she whispered. He wouldn’t dare . . .’
‘I hope we are not thinking the same thing,’ James said.
Alice’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Poor Mama. She has fretted and cried that she cannot bear the grief, that she will lose her mind. Sir Brendan seemed to encourage this, to tell her that her mind had always the tendency to instability and now it was unsound, and she would not be well for months, even years. I heard him, relating to her the hereditary strain of . . . insanity . . . that runs in her family.’
Everyone’s mind turned to George III, Queen Victoria’s great-grandfather. He had spent the last ten years his life roaming the corridors of Windsor Castle, completely off his head.
‘Why would he want to convince the Queen that she was insane?’ Katie asked.
DuQuelle took out his handkerchief and brushed an imaginary spot from his hat. ‘It may not be what he wants. For some time we have all suspected that Sir Brendan answers to another master.’
James thought carefully. ‘His great pride has grown even worse since the Queen ennobled him. The title has gone to his head. He is desperate to make a match for my sister in the highest echelons of society. We’ve argued many times about this, and about money. He talks endlessly of keeping up appearances and spends far beyond his means. My father must be in terrible debt.’
Bernardo DuQuelle put his hat down at the foot of the bed and, taking off his cloak, smoothed its surface. ‘I am reminded of Sir Lindsey Dimblock, that fool of a friend of Lord Twisted. Do you remember? He owed a great debt. His creditor urged him to turn spy and he refused. Sir Lindsey was found filleted and gutted – thrown into the Thames.’
Katie shuddered. ‘I’d forgotten. That was just awful, but it was, wasn’t he killed by . . . ?’
The three young people looked at each other, eyes widening. Alice instinctively reached for James. Even DuQuelle looked at him with sympathy. ‘Our suspicions have come to fruition. I see all the hallmarks of Lord Belzen,’ he told them. ‘It is as we feared. James, this is dangerous indeed – for your father, and even more so for the Queen. Belzen will show no mercy.’
A great sense of shame seemed to weigh James down. ‘I’m certain you are right. Lord Belzen feeds off the vanity and ambition of men like my father. He has fallen into Belzen’s debt and now he is in his power.’
‘Will he kill the Queen?’ Katie asked before she could stop herself.
Alice blanched so white she could have been DuQuelle’s daughter. But DuQuelle was quick to reassure her. ‘He will not kill the Queen. Your brother Bertie would simply become King and order would be restored. Lord Belzen wishes to create the most upheaval possible. And a Queen whose sanity comes and goes creates much more unrest. She cannot truly rule and her son will not have power. This is the perfect storm: the best possible environment for upheaval and civil war. I have to give Lord Belzen his due, he certainly understands history.’
Each of them pondered the situation. Did the Queen really believe she was insane? And if she did, where had she allowed Sir Brendan to take her?
Alice, though terrified herself, tried to comfort James. ‘You are nothing like your father,’ she said. ‘We’ve joked about this many a day. Anyone who has made your acquaintance respects your abilities.’ She stopped, turning slightly pink, fearing she had said too much.
DuQuelle, usually so insightful, did seem stumped. He paced the room, swinging his walking stick – a habit, Katie had learned, he adopted when he was anxious. And then he stopped suddenly. ‘What is this?’ he exclaimed, lifting the end of a pillow with his cane. It was the edge of a piece of paper.
Princess Alice ran forward and pulled it out. ‘Mama has taken to writing my father notes,’ she explained. ‘She slips them under the pillow at night, as if his spirit will come back and read them.’ The paper was neatly folded, but in places the surface was wrinkled, as if it had got we
t, Katie suspected, with the Queen’s tears. ‘It would be terribly indelicate to read it,’ Alice said.
Bernardo DuQuelle had a soft spot for Alice. He took the paper from her. ‘If it will help us to find her,’ he said gently, ‘then reading it must be the proper thing to do.’ Silently he read the Queen’s words, shaking his head all the while. ‘It says much,’ he said, ‘but nothing of her location. Katie, we know that Lord Belzen was responsible for the loss of your power with words. Perhaps, now that his hold on you has ceased, you will be able to help.’
He passed the note to Katie. She looked at the Queen’s flamboyant handwriting, with her bold underlining:
I know you told me to be strong and not to give way to the passions of my grief. But I cannot. Life is unbearable. The world is nothing to me. I can see only you, hear only you. Good Sir Brendan is taking me somewhere I can truly be with you, without the intolerable duties of ruling. He assures me there will be quiet and solitude and that this will help me to commune the better with you. There we shall meet.
As Katie stared at the paper, she could hear the Queen’s voice, silvery and sad, saying the words. Yet as the note ended, she heard the Queen’s voice continue. Katie could see her, alone and heavily veiled, solitary in a dark, curtained room. She was lamenting – crying out for her husband.
‘Don’t cry,’ Katie said. ‘Wipe your tears.’ DuQuelle’s face took on a new eagerness. ‘Katie, use your powers. Tell us, where is the Queen?’
Katie continued to stare at the small, lost woman, sitting in a heap on the floor. Then, in her mind’s eye, she walked to the window and pulled back the heavy curtains. All around the house there were dark woods. With some difficulty a carriage rattled up the rutted drive. The coachman hopped down and rang the bell.
‘Brislington?’ he asked at the door.
‘Brislington,’ Katie said in a low voice. ‘She’s at Brislington.’
DuQuelle took the letter from her and led Katie to a chair.
‘Do you know what this is, this Brislington?’ Princess Alice asked.
James O’Reilly looked furious. ‘It is hard to believe, that he would do this. I can never forgive my father.’
Katie was coming out of her dream-like state. Princess Alice was weeping. DuQuelle handed her his handkerchief. He seemed to have a never-ending supply.
‘You are right to weep,’ he said. ‘Brislington is a lunatic asylum. Near Bristol.’
Princess Alice twisted the handkerchief in her hands. ‘Oh my poor mother! Oh the Queen! She must be so confused and distressed. We will leave at once for Bristol.’
DuQuelle put up a restraining hand. ‘It is not that simple. We must save the Queen, but no one can know she has been in an asylum. Not her ladies-in-waiting or the rest of her family, and certainly not the people of Britain. How is this to be done?’
James paced the room, desperate to act. ‘Brislington is very isolated,’ he said. ‘The buildings are set within acres of beautiful grounds. The Queen will probably be in a villa, separate from the institution, with her attendants acting as guards. But we cannot storm this place; that would draw the attention we fear. How can we rescue her?’
For a long time they were silent, mentally trying then rejecting one idea after another. Then it occurred to Katie. She was the key to this. She knew how to liberate the Queen.
‘James, how many times have you told me I’m crazy?’ she asked.
James looked annoyed. ‘This is hardly the time . . . about a dozen I should say.’
Katie was frightened, but also a bit excited. ‘Well this is your big chance to prove it,’ she said.
Bernardo DuQuelle began to understand. ‘That just might be effective,’ he pondered. ‘But how should we carry it out . . . ?’
Katie smiled at him. ‘Bernardo DuQuelle, you are a much-respected courtier. James O’Reilly is acting as the household physician to the Royal Family in his father’s absence. I am an eminent visitor from America, and under the care of the Royal Household. And now I’ve become the worst possible house guest and gone off my rocker. You can take me to Brislington and have me locked up. I will get to the Queen.’
She had thought it out in a flash. It would be quite easy. She’d simply blow her cover. All the things she knew, her life in New York City – aeroplanes, the internet, reality TV, atomic bombs, Mimi the pop star, space travel – to the Victorians, these would be the symptoms of insanity. And then there was that whole other world: Lucia, Belzen, the Verus and the Malum. The bizzare, magnificent world of the Tempus. ‘I can’t tell you how easy it will be,’ she concluded. ‘I’ll be committed in a flash.’ There was a slight twinkle in DuQuelle’s eyes.
Alice looked even more anxious. ‘I cannot let you do this,’ she said. ‘It is much too dangerous.’
But James too was excited by the idea. ‘We can state that it’s a temporary mental disturbance, and all Katie needs is some rest. That way we can take her out whenever we wish.’
For DuQuelle and James the matter was settled. Princess Alice was to stay at Windsor, and keep up the pretence that the Queen was in isolated mourning at Osborne House. DuQuelle prepared a series of letters from the Queen to her daughter and ladies-in-waiting as proof of this visit.
‘You’ve got a knack for forgery,’ Katie commented as the Queen’s highly individual script came flooding from his pen.
‘Your civilization’s use of words, the reading and the writing – it was all so distant from what I knew, nothing came from within. So I can write as any person, in all languages,’ he replied.
Sometimes Katie forgot just how strange DuQuelle was. But for now she had other things to ponder. She was about to become a lunatic.
Chapter Twenty
The Asylum
They had missed the last train to Bristol, so decided to travel through the night, by carriage. On the long journey, Katie practised looking crazy. She knew this was about as politically incorrect as she could get, but she had to make certain they would let her in. Taking off her black mourning bonnet, she unpinned her brown hair. It sprang around her face in its natural bushy, wiry mass. After several days of travelling by horse and carriage, her clothes were already wrinkled and soiled. She hated to think about how she smelled. Already Katie was losing her Victorian primness. She adopted a far away, vacant expression and repeated to herself, ‘I don’t know. I have no idea. Who am I? Where am I?’
James O’Reilly watched her. If he hadn’t been so unhappy, it really would have been funny. ‘My advice to you is just to act natural – you’re strange enough as you are.’
‘What symptoms do you look for, when you’re declaring someone insane?’ Katie asked.
James thought for a moment. ‘Well in a woman, it’s talking too loudly, too much laughing, discussing delicate matters with strangers – as I said, all the things you already do, Katie.’ He smiled grimly to himself.
Katie decided not to be offended. It was such a tense time, and James had such heavy burdens to bear. Besides, she needed all the friends she had.
They stopped only to changes horses along the way. No one really wanted to talk, and Katie must have dozed off. Soon, it seemed, Bernardo DuQuelle was shaking her gently. ‘We’re almost there,’ he said. ‘I am aware of your mother’s antics. That Mimi puts on quite a show. Now let’s see what you’ve got, Katie. I’d pull out all the stops if I were you.’
It had snowed during the night and the ground was snapping crisp under the horses’ hooves. Katie rubbed the frost off the carriage window and looked outside to the new day. She could see nothing for miles but trees.
‘I told you it was isolated,’ James said. ‘Most doctors think it’s best to house the insane in remote areas.’
‘Yeah,’ Katie replied. ‘You wouldn’t want to spook the villagers or anything.’ She was getting more nervous by the minute.
The woodland thinned as they went up a steep incline. At the top of the hill were two imposing coach houses. DuQuelle got out and spoke to the gatekeeper. K
atie noticed an exchange of money. Finally the imposing iron gates swung open and the carriage swept up a long gravel drive. The grounds were extensive and beautiful. At the very end of the drive was a grand building with high stone pillars.
‘Palladian,’ DuQuelle remarked. ‘Lovely, of course, but rather lonely in the snow – so much more suitable to the sunnier climes of Italy.’
Katie was no longer fooled by DuQuelle’s clever asides. She knew he was nervous too. The coachman pulled on the reins and the horses came to a stop before the building, their breath hanging white in the winter air.
Bernardo DuQuelle scanned the gardens, his green eyes quick and sharp. ‘Here is your cloak, Katie,’ he said. ‘Draw the hood over your face. Sir Brendan might still be in attendance. You do not want him to recognize you. Try and explore the house and grounds as soon as possible. We’ll be nearby. When you have any information on the Queen leave a note in the small shrubbery next to the ornamental folly.’ All three sat anxiously in the carriage, as a servant pulled down the carriage steps.
James O’Reilly leaned forward and took Katie’s hand. ‘You are the best sort of girl, Katie,’ he said, as great a compliment as one could expect from James.
As she was handed out of the carriage, Bernardo DuQuelle murmured his assent. ‘Good luck, Katie. Good luck to all of us.’
Yet as she looked up to thank him, his face had changed. The mask was back, with an edge of hauteur and a hint of disdain.
‘Please call for the head of this institution. I have little time, and this young lady must be committed to his care,’ DuQuelle said to the servant.
Katie turned to James, but he also had assumed a stern air. They were shown into a cosy sitting room. The fire blazed merrily and comfortable chairs were grouped throughout the room. ‘Perhaps this won’t be so bad,’ she thought. Yet as she moved towards the fireplace, Katie realized the fire was caged in behind an enormous iron grate, and all of the furniture was bolted securely to the floor.
The doctor entered, grey-haired and seemingly gentle. And yet there was something about him. ‘I am Dr Fox,’ he said, coming towards Bernardo DuQuelle. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you. I have read your work on the origins of language with admiration.’ Katie didn’t like him. He had a mild rather kittenish face but his sharp eyes were truly foxlike.
The Chronicles of the Tempus Page 62