Slumber

by Felicity Harper

  Gilbert found Evangeline peering behind the curtains as though she were looking for something.

  “Lady Evangeline. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” he asked, startling her.

  “My cousin is missing, Mr Thackeray!” she said, foregoing any pretence at the social niceties. “I should like to hear your thoughts on that.”

  “Please have a seat,” Gilbert invited her and Evangeline perched herself on the settle. “Now, tell me, Lady Evangeline: how is it that the Princess has managed to disappear if she is presumably still in Slumber?”

  “Of course she is still in Slumber,” she snapped. “And I don’t have an answer for how my cousin vanished other than to say she has.” Taking a calming breath, she smiled politely and changed tack. “That is why I am here, Mr Thackeray.”

  “Very well then, Lady Evangeline: my next question is why have you come to me? I don’t recall either you or Lady Motley giving credence to any help or advice I have offered in the past.”

  Evangeline kept her grimly polite smile in place. “I apologise, Mr Thackeray, if either myself or my mother has seemed in any way … ungrateful,” she said. “It is just that we have been overwhelmed by the worry and grief that Princess Clementine’s condition has caused us.”

  “Forgive me if I did not recognise what I saw of your behaviour or that of your mother at the garden party as grief, Lady Evangeline,” Gilbert replied sardonically. “Perhaps a Ball will help you find the Princess?”

  Flustered, Evangeline jumped up and paced the small sitting room. “Mr Thackeray, I see you do not understand our ways - as, doubtless, we do not understand yours.” She glared at him now. “Perhaps you would care to tell me what you know of the disappearance?”

  “Are you making an accusation, Lady Evangeline?” Gilbert demanded angrily.

  “Your maid was overheard saying that you spoke with someone while supposedly alone,” she retorted. “You called that person Clementine.”

  “Really, Lady Evangeline,” Gilbert laughed dismissively, “I would have thought you above listening to servants’ gossip.”

  “Are you saying you did not say my cousin’s name aloud in this house?” she said, scanning the room as though she might spot Clementine hiding there.

  “I’m saying no such thing,” Gilbert said easily. “I have been tasked by the King himself with finding a cure for the Princess. I will not deny that I am wont to speak my thoughts aloud while trying to solve a problem.” He shrugged: “We all have our little idiosyncrasies.”

  “Idiosyncrasies indeed, Mr Thackeray!” Evangeline said, her face reddening with anger. “I find that hard to believe!”

  “In that case, perhaps you would like to tour my home in search of the elusive Princess?” Gilbert suggested calmly. “Mrs Finn!”

  The housekeeper appeared at the door a few moments later. “Ah, Mrs Finn,” Gilbert said congenially, “would you show Lady Evangeline around the house, please? She will need to see into every cupboard and under all the beds.” He gestured for Lady Evangeline to follow his startled housekeeper. “Take your time. I will be in my study, working to find a cure for the Princess.”

  “Mr Thackeray!” Evangeline gasped, “I will not stand here and be ridiculed and insulted by the likes of you!”

  “In that case: Mrs Finn, please show her Ladyship the front door,” Gilbert replied and returned abruptly to his study.

  “Well! I did not expect that!” Clementine said once Evangeline had left. “Neither my cousin coming here nor her doing so on her own.”

  “It does speak of something, doesn’t it?” Gilbert said thoughtfully. “Though what it is, I cannot say - yet!”

  “She heard Hetty and Molly talking about you at the fair,” Clementine told him. “Perhaps you should speak with the girl.”

  “I shall do just that,” Gilbert agreed and, with Clementine by his side, he went to the kitchen to find Hetty.

  “I shall stay here with you, Mrs Finn,” Clementine announced as a sullen Hetty followed Gilbert to his study.

  “What’s that daft girl been up to now?” Mrs Finn asked, taking her seat at the kitchen table where she had been writing her weekly housekeeping list.

  “Nothing terrible. She was just being a little indiscreet,” Clementine said and plopped down on the edge of the table. “Hence the visit from Lady Evangeline.”

  “Youngsters today,” Mrs Finn sighed and shook her head. “They can’t be told!”

  “Not like in your day I expect, Mrs Finn?”

  “Just because I can’t see you, Princess Clementine, don’t mean I can’t hear that tone!”

  “Tone? What tone?” Clementine laughed. “I was just teasing you, Mrs Finn.”

  The housekeeper harrumphed and went back to her list. Clementine swung her legs back and forth. “Have you known Mr Thackeray for a very long time?” she asked casually.

  “Since he were a boy,” Mrs Finn said, still tallying the numbers on her list.

  “Did you work for his parents?” she asked carefully.

  Mrs Finn looked up from her work. “No. I worked for Lord Granbury, Mr Thackeray’s grandfather. And before you ask me any more of your questions, Princess, let me just say that, unlike Hetty, I’m not one for gossip.”

  “I never thought you were!” Clementine exclaimed. “I just thought that, if anyone knows why Gilbert Thackeray can be so reticent, it would be you. Why! You are like a mother to him!”

  Clearly mollified, Mrs Finn put her pencil down and folded her hands on the table. “Mr Thackeray was just a boy when his whole world was taken away from him,” she confided sadly. “No sooner were his parents dead than his grandfather was sending for him. Not to come and live with him, mind, but to pack him off to school.”

  “How terrible!” Clementine gasped. “He lost his parents and his home in one fell swoop?”

  “Aye and he were only a little lad at the time too,” Mrs Finn said. “Back then, I worked at Ingleworth, his grandfather’s county seat. I came back here with Mr Thackeray when he was all grown and needed a housekeeper.”

  “So this was Gilbert’s childhood home?”

  “Oh yes. Mr Thackeray inherited it once he came of age. He came back here against his grandfather’s wishes.” She shook her head, remembering that terrible time. “He brought both me and Hill here with him when he left.”

  “What happened to his grandfather?”

  “Old Lord Granbury died a long time ago now - and he’d have cut Mr Thackeray off without owt if he could but there were no other heirs. His mother, Mrs Thackeray, or Lady Catherine as was, had been an only child.”

  Clementine had a feeling there was a lot more to the story than the loyal servant was willing to say. “So what is Gilbert’s official title?”

  “His grandfather was the Marquis of Granbury.” Mrs Finn stood and gathered her things together. “Now then, Princess, I think I’ve said enough,” she said firmly. “If you want to know any more, then I suggest you ask the Master.”

  “I will,” Clementine said and she hopped down from the table just as Hetty entered the kitchen with eyes red and swollen from a bout of tears.

  “Can’t say a bloody word to no one without some wretch tellin’,” the maid whined. “Then don’t say anything to anyone!” Mrs Finn admonished. “And another thing …”

  With the sound of Mrs Finn’s scoldings ringing in her ears, Clementine went to find Gilbert.

  Clementine floated closer to the bed and hesitated. Her hand hovered above him as he slept. “I’m sorry Gilbert,” she murmured and she laid her hand on him. The connection formed immediately. She was with the young Gilbert. He was being shouted at by his grandfather and the old man’s face was red with rage. “You are weak like you mother! Too bloody weak to survive, the pair of you!”

  “Do not speak ill of my mother!” Gilbert said angrily.

  “You dare to answer me back, boy?” His grandfather raised his hand and struck his grandson
hard across his face. “You will learn to keep quiet in my house or you will suffer the consequences!”

  Gilbert kept his head lowered so his grandfather would not see his tears. He cried not for himself but for his poor Mama who had been good and kind, despite having this monster for a father. His mother had not been too weak but too good to live.

  It was the Rector who had told him, “‘Tis the good who die young,” and Gilbert’s parents were proof of that. He knew he would never allow himself to love anyone again. It hurt too much to bear.

  “Oh, Gilbert,” Clementine whispered. Her heart filled with sorrow for the little boy. “If I promise not to die, will you allow yourself to love me?” she asked and she laid down on the bed beside him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dr Fellowes refused to be intimidated by the Duke.

  “I have told you, my Lord: when I returned, she had already gone.”

  Sir Hugo looked down his nose at the doctor. “The King will have your head for this, physician,” he said, dismissing him with a flick of his hand. “Who else is there?” he demanded. “I shall leave no stone unturned in this Palace until my beloved is found!”

  “The nurse was the last to see her but you’ll get no more sense out of her than I did,” Lady Motley said. “Call the old woman in!” Agnes entered the drawing room, her old head held high.

  “So you are the nurse?” the Duke shouted, as though she were deaf as well as old.

  “M’Lord, m’Lady,” Agnes said, inclining her head rather than bother her knees with a curtsy.

  “In your own words, nurse, where were you when the Princess went missing?” Sir Hugo said imperiously.

  “In the privy, my Lord.”

  Taken aback, the Duke sputtered, “Oh! Er - yes: well then …..” He coughed and regained control of himself. “And then what did you do?”

  “After I was finished?” she asked and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Oh yes! I had to go again. A bit of dodgy beef the night before, I think.”

  “When you had finished your toilet,” Lady Motley snapped, losing her patience with the elderly woman, “What, pray, did you do then?”

  “Oh, I didn’t pray, m’Lady,” Agnes answered innocently. “I went down to the kitchen for some salts to settle me stomach.”

  Lady Motley sighed aggressively. “Are you being deliberately obtuse, nurse?” she demanded.

  “No, m’Lady. I’m just telling you what I did - like you asked.”

  The Duke held up his hand to forestall Lady Motley. “Let’s get straight to the part where you have gone back to the Tower and found the Princess gone,” he said determinedly.

  “Well now,” Agnes scratched her chin and contemplated the question. “I came back from the kitchen and went up to the Tower. Took me a while, mind, ‘cause of me old knees,” she said, bending over to give them a rub as though the mere mention of them had made them ache. “But I don’t ‘spect you’re interested in that?”

  “No we are not …” Lady Motley began but the Duke cut her off.

  “Just the bit where you are entering the actual Tower Room will do, thank you, nurse.”

  “Righto! Well I walked into the actual Tower Room - and she were gone!”

  “Gone where?” Sir Hugo asked encouragingly.

  “I dunno. I was in the privy!”

  Lady Motley made a sound like a snarl and Sir Hugo threw his hands up in despair. “You can go,” he told the nurse and she did: very slowly, on account of her knees.

  “She is playing us for fools!” Lady Motley hissed angrily as the door finally closed behind the old woman.

  The Duke snorted. “I doubt that,” he said. “It would take more than an old bird like her to make a fool out of me!”

  Out in the hallway, Agnes gave Fellowes the nod and he smiled in return and went on his way. The old nurse had a quick look around and rushed up the stairs. In her hurry to get back to the North Tower, she didn’t notice that someone was watching her from the shadows.

  “I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep all the Kingdoms and their rulers straight in my head,” Clementine complained, closing The Twelve Kingdoms: Monarchy and Peerage Volume II.

  Gilbert raised his eyes from the text he’d been reading. “Never mind, you can always appoint advisers to remind you when the time comes,” he said. “The important thing is you remember the names of your closest neighbours!”

  “And the names of all the Rosenly Dukes and Barons presumably?” she said, playing along.

  “Oh definitely! They don’t like to think their King or, indeed, their Queen has forgotten how important they are.”

  “And what about you, Gilbert?” she asked him casually. “How would you like me to address you?”

  Gilbert’s smile vanished. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

  “I mean, would you prefer to be addressed as Mr Thackeray or Lord Granbury?”

  “You already, quite rightly, address me as Mr Thackeray,” he said coldly. “There is no reason for you to use an antiquated title I neither want nor claim.”

  “But you are a Marquess!” Clementine persisted.

  Gilbert slammed his book closed, “Why Clementine?” he asked her angrily. “Tell me why you are suddenly interested in this!”

  “Because the man I marry must have a title,” she shrugged and held up The Twelve Kingdoms. “That’s just the rules.”

  “And what has that to do with me?”

  “Because I choose you, Gilbert,” Clementine said simply. “I will marry no other.”

  “No, Clementine: that cannot be .…” He stopped. “What’s wrong?” he asked urgently as she silently cried out to him. Clementine’s eyes were wide with fear. Her mouth opened and closed but made no sound.

  “Clementine!” Gilbert called. But it was too late: she had gone.

  Clementine was fighting for her life.

  There were no cushions or pillows in the North Tower and it was evidently harder to end a life when the only weapons available were your bare hands. Her attacker slackened their grip. Clementine was momentarily released and she saw for the first time who was trying to murder her.

  “Evie, no!” she screamed and her cousin stumbled back in surprise.

  “W-where are you?” Evangeline asked, spinning around.

  “I’m here!” Clementine yelled and launched a candle at her cousin’s head but Evangeline ducked and the candle sailed past her. She launched herself again at Clementine’s body, wrapping her hands around her throat and squeezing tightly. Black spots clouded Clementine’s vision and she could feel her energy dissipating as her life force ebbed away.

  “Die!” Evangeline screamed, panting with the effort to end her cousin’s life. Her grip loosened slightly again and Clementine summoned enough energy to throw herself, caterwauling like a demented banshee, against Evangeline. The two of them flew across the room. Evangeline clapped her hands to her ears.

  “Stop, Clemmie! Please stop!” she begged - as though she were the victim. Clementine screeched until she could scream no more and then slumped against the wall next to her cousin.

  “I never believed it could be you, Evie,” she said brokenly. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

  Evangeline turned away. “Because you took him away from me, Clementine!” she howled. “You took my Hugo from me!”

  Defeated by her cousin’s logic, Clementine asked, “Are you the reason I’m in the Slumber?”

  “I just wanted you out of the way so that Hugo would remember it was me he wanted!” Evangeline’s face twisted in fury. “But he wanted you anyway!”

  “Hugo is a monster, Evie!” Clementine said wearily. “What he was proposing to do was disgusting.”

  “He’s no monster!” Evangeline snarled, pulling herself up the wall, Her face was contorted with rage. She posed to attack but, at that moment, they heard the distant flare of trumpets. The King had returned!

  “Father!” Clementin
e cried and Evangeline lunged at her cousin’s sleeping body. She threw herself across the Princess, pressing her hands tight around her neck. Clementine had exhausted her spirit. She could do nothing to save herself from her cousin’s maddened onslaught. Slowly, she felt herself drifting away and the darkness eclipsed her soul.

  “Gilbert,” she whispered. More than anything, Princess Clementine wanted him to be the last person she ever saw before she died.

  Gilbert galloped his horse through the gates just behind the King’s retinue.