The House of Hidden Wonders

by Sharon Gosling

  “Ah yes,” said Lady Sarah with a laugh. “The monkey.”

  “That’s another reason she could never go to an asylum,” Zinnie said. “I think they would both die if they were separated for any length of time. They love each other like … well, like sisters.”

  Lady Sarah nodded and put down her cup and saucer. “There is also the matter of Nell, your youngest sister,” she said. “I know from Doctor Jex-Blake that you have a horror of the orphanages and that she has suggested a private adoption instead.”

  Zinnie’s gut twisted at the thought of little Nell being put with strangers. But what could she do? Taking Nell back to Mary King’s Close would only leave her open to getting sick again. Besides, Talbot was still out there and, however hard she tried, Zinnie wouldn’t be able to keep all of them safe from him all the time. And yet…

  “You don’t like that idea, either, though, do you?” Lady Sarah asked, watching her carefully.

  “I won’t be with her,” Zinnie blurted. “I won’t be there to make sure they treat her well. She’s my sister but I wouldn’t be able to – to keep her safe!”

  Lady Sarah nodded. She stared at the fire for a moment. “What if I were to be the one to adopt her?”

  For a moment Zinnie thought she must have misheard. “Y-you?”

  “And Aelfine too. Sadie and yourself as well, for that matter. Would you trust me to look after you all? Would you like to live in Montague House, with me?”

  Zinnie’s mind was spinning so fast that she was having trouble keeping up with what Lady Sarah was saying. Surely she couldn’t mean it? To have them all living here? How could that possibly ever—

  “I do mean it,” Lady Sarah said, as if she could read Zinnie’s mind. “Look at this place, Zinnie. It is too big for just me, especially when I’m away for such long periods of time. If the four of you come here – five, sorry, of course I must count Ruby too – then you will all be safe, always. Aelfine can be looked after as much or as little as she needs, and will always have a home. Nell can enter school when she’s old enough. Sadie can train with Sophia. And you…”

  She stopped and Zinnie looked up. “What about me?”

  “Well, I once asked if you wanted to be a maid here, Zinnie, but now I realize that it is not an occupation that would suit you.”

  Zinnie blinked, surprised by the stab of disappointment in her gut. Lady Sarah didn’t want her, after all? “Oh.”

  “Having seen you in action – how resourceful you are, how resilient and brave – I have come to think that instead you would be a perfect travelling companion.”

  Zinnie forgot to breathe. “A – what?”

  Lady Sarah leaned forward with a grin that lit up her face. “What do you say, Zinnie? Will you come with me to South America?”

  There was a moment of silence before Zinnie managed to speak. “But why?” she asked in a whisper. “Why would you do all that, for us?”

  Lady Sarah smiled. “Because I can and because I should. And –” she looked down at her elegant hands folded in her lap – “because I hope it means that I will not grow old wondering what I could have done differently to leave something good behind me. One thinks about that more and more, you know, as one ages.”

  Zinnie looked into the crackling fire, still stunned.

  “I am so very grateful that Arthur introduced us, Zinnie,” Lady Sarah said softly. “I think it will do all of us a very great service to have each other in our lives. He’s very taken with the idea of an intrepid group of children who know the streets of a city in a way no one else can. His imagination is as sharp as his intellect, you know. Don’t be surprised if you turn up in one of his stories one day. Anyway. You will talk to your sisters about my proposal?” Lady Sarah asked. “And you will think about your own future? South America will not be easy, I grant you, but I have a fancy you are more than up to the challenge.”

  Zinnie carried on staring into the fire. There was a lot to take in, but really how could any of them turn down such an offer? “Of course I will,” she said.

  Lady Sarah smiled. “Good. I do so hope this is just the beginning of our adventures together. I would hate it to be the end.”

  Zinnie was preparing to leave when the bell rang and the butler admitted Arthur Conan Doyle. He looked surprised and then pleased to see Zinnie.

  “There you are!” he said. “How very fortuitous. You were to be my next port of call.”

  “I was just leaving,” Zinnie told him, edging towards the door. She had a feeling that, although Lady Sarah seemed happy to leave the events of the previous evening in the past, Conan Doyle had other ideas. “I have to get back. I told the girls I wouldn’t be long.”

  “Then, my dear Lady Sarah, would you excuse me? With your permission, I will walk Miss Zinnie home and then come back again.”

  “Of course, Arthur,” said Lady Sarah. “I shall be here, recovering from the exploits of yesterday evening.”

  “I really don’t need an escort,” Zinnie said, as they left George Street and turned towards the Old Town. “It’s far more likely to be the other way round.”

  “I know that,” said Conan Doyle. “I just wanted to speak to you. Alone. You see, I have been thinking.”

  “Oh?”

  “About last night.”

  “Oh.”

  “It seems to me,” he continued, with the air of a man launching into what he expects to be a long explanation, “that while we may indeed have the spirits of the otherworld to thank for revealing both the murderer and his victim’s whereabouts, there may also have been … other forces … at work.”

  “Other forces?”

  “Of a more human nature,” he added. “You see, here is what I’ve been thinking. That perhaps the interruption by the man called Talbot was not quite as much of a surprise as everyone thought, at least not to some of us.”

  “Well, no,” agreed Zinnie. “MacDuff knew exactly what was going to happen because he set it up.”

  “That’s true,” said Conan Doyle. “But what if he wasn’t the only person to know about that? That would mean that everything that happened thereafter – including the appearance of the second ghost – was not a surprise, either, at least not to those same people.”

  “But it was,” said Zinnie. “You saw Aelfine – she was so scared that she fainted.”

  “Oh, of course, of course,” said Conan Doyle. “I am just positing a possible second solution, that’s all. If we are to question the notion of an actual ghost.”

  “All right,” said Zinnie.

  “Because it occurs to me,” he went on, “that even if Aelfine had not been interrupted the first time, what is it that she would have said besides exactly what the ‘real’ ghost itself revealed? You see, here is my theory – if we are agreeing that there never was, in fact, a ghost in Mary King’s Close.”

  “Except there was,” Zinnie said. “You and I saw it, and other people did too. You heard it, Mr Conan Doyle, and declared yourself that it could be nothing but a ghost.”

  “Indeed. But indulge me, just for a moment. Imagine, if you will, that someone enterprising had decided to stage a seance in order to reveal the identity of a murderer and the whereabouts of his victim’s body. But that the blackguard had, in turn, learned of or at least suspected this plot and had taken steps to interrupt the so-called seance, intending to do so at the height of the subterfuge and therefore discredit his accuser and capture the culprit.

  “What if this enterprising individual had decided that the way to turn the tide in her – or his – favour was to allow the seance to go ahead, even knowing that it would be ruined? What if that individual had then conspired to steal certain items, including some of the victim’s possessions and also a small, intimate item belonging to the murderer? Say a set of clothes and a kerchief perhaps. The garments could be used to stage a second trick immediately in the wake of the first, in such heightened and stunning circumstances that no one present would believe it could possibly have been
anything but real.”

  “But who would have performed the second trick?” Zinnie protested. “You yourself had hold of me and MacDuff had captured Aelfine! Who else was there?”

  “Ah,” said Conan Doyle, with a little shake of his stick. “Well, I should like to know exactly what time it was that young Miss Sadie actually arrived at the clinic after she left us on the Mile. Or indeed if that is where she went at all?”

  Zinnie had no comeback for that. Conan Doyle gave a quick smile.

  “The kerchief, meanwhile,” he went on, “took a more gruesome route, namely to the body itself, as proof both of the murderer’s identity and guilt. Then, when the spectacle unfolded and everyone was amazed, the truth would indeed seem as if it had come from beyond the grave. The murderer would be well and truly caught, and the victim finally laid to rest.”

  They had reached the entrance to Mary King’s Close. Zinnie turned to Conan Doyle with a smile.

  “You are so very clever,” she said. “I could never have thought of that in a month of Sundays.”

  Conan Doyle looked at her with narrowed eyes. “I am not so sure of that, Miss Zinnie. I am not so sure of that at all.” There was a slight pause and then he said, “You could have trusted me with the truth. I would have helped you and your sisters. All of them.” He glanced the length of Writers’ Court, his lips tightening in an unhappy line before he added, “I do understand why you did what you did, though, for Aelfine’s sake.”

  Zinnie smiled again. “You’re making things more complicated than they are, Mr Conan Doyle.”

  “And what is the simple solution?”

  “That a restless ghost showed us the way to the body of a poor murdered woman.”

  Conan Doyle smiled. “Ah well,” he said. “Perhaps, after all, the most obvious solution is the truth.”

  “That’s usually the way,” Zinnie said. “People like to think the world more tangled than it is.”

  There was a pause, as if he were thinking carefully about what Zinnie had said. “Words to live by,” Arthur Conan Doyle finally declared, with the definite air of a man putting a full stop to a sentence. “I will see you again, I am sure.”

  Zinnie scuffed the toe of her shoe against the ground. “Probably the next time you need help solving a mystery.”

  He laughed. “Of course, Miss Zinnie. Of that I have no doubt.”

  They said their farewells and went their separate ways, he back to the salons of the New Town, she to the underground recesses of Mary King’s Close.

  Two months later

  “Nell, where are your shoes?”

  “They’re too tight! I don’t like them!”

  “That’s because they’re new,” Zinnie called, as Nell charged back up the stairs with Aelfine and Ruby, all three of them shouting and laughing fit to lift the roof. “You need to wear them in, that’s all! Aelfine’s wearing hers! Nell! You can’t be an explorer without shoes!”

  “I’m not entirely sure that’s true actually, dear,” said Lady Sarah, her voice muffled as she struggled to pull a breastplate on over her riding habit. “I have heard tell of a particularly hardy people called Sherpas, some of whom can walk vast distances in the Himalayas wearing nothing on their feet at all.”

  There was a pause as she finally succeeded in yanking the stiff leather down over her chin. “Although I don’t suppose that’s much help in this instance. Nell!” she called. “If you don’t put your shoes on, we can’t go out and I had Cook use the last strawberries from the hothouse to make a cake especially for our supper expedition! It will have to be our last of the summer – you don’t want to miss that, do you?”

  The sound of the girls’ footsteps stopped. There was an abrupt silence, broken just as suddenly by loud whispers. Then the three of them all thundered back down the stairs again, arriving in the entrance hall flushed and out of breath. It had been like this since the moment Nell, Aelfine and Ruby had met – together the three of them had become a whirlwind of frantic, inseparable friendship.

  “That’s better,” said Zinnie. “Now, shoes on.”

  “I’ll help you,” Aelfine said, as Nell retrieved the offending articles. “It’s easy once you know how.”

  Ruby chattered, grinning, as if to point out that she didn’t have to wear shoes. Aelfine and Nell both stuck their tongues out at her.

  “Where’s Sadie?” Nell asked, as she sat on the bottom step of the stairs. “Isn’t she coming too? And the doctor?”

  “I should think so,” said Lady Sarah. “Sadie is the keeper of the key, after all.”

  “We’re here,” came Sadie’s voice, as she and Doctor Jex-Blake appeared out of the parlour that Lady Sarah had given over to Sadie for her studies.

  “My goodness, Sarah,” said Doctor Jex-Blake, seeing Lady Sarah’s breastplate. “What on earth are you wearing?”

  Lady Sarah looked down at herself, smiling broadly. “Fabulous, isn’t it? I bought it from the sale of goods at the House of Wonders. I have a feeling it’ll be perfect for our trip to South America. I’m testing it this evening to see how easy it is to move in – if it feels right, I shall have one made for Zinnie too.”

  The sale of MacDuff’s ill-gotten gains had caused quite a stir, not just in Edinburgh but also further afield. Lady Sarah had bought quite a few pieces from his collection, including almost all the animals that he had penned up in those awful glass cases. Shortly after Ruby had come to Montague House, she had been joined by a mongoose, a porcupine and a capybara. Doctor Jex-Blake had persuaded her friend to draw the line at the boa constrictor, which had been taken instead to a zoo somewhere in England.

  “It is really quite remarkable that so much wonder could come from such a terrible place, really,” Lady Sarah went on. “Some on display and some … quite, quite hidden.” She gave Aelfine an affectionate smile. “How lucky I was to find them at all. And now we really should get this expedition under way. It’s getting late.”

  “We aren’t carrying all this across to the gardens, surely?” Doctor Jex-Blake asked, looking at the bags and boxes in which Lady Sarah’s cook, Martha, had diligently packed their supper picnic.

  “Of course!” said Lady Sarah. “This is practice for Zinnie and I. Nell, my darling, how are you coming with those shoes? Ready to go yet?”

  “I’ve got to bring Algernon! He needs a walk and some fresh grass!”

  “Very well, but make sure you have his lead. I don’t want to lose him again. And you’ll have to carry him across the street. We can’t have him getting squashed by a carriage, can we? Right, everyone,” said Lady Sarah, as Nell went chasing off to find the tortoise. “Take hold of something to carry and we shall be off. Don’t forget the blankets.”

  They were interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. Zinnie opened it to find Arthur Conan Doyle standing on the doorstep in the early September sunshine. He had a copy of Chambers’s Journal under one arm and a broad grin on his face.

  “Miss Zinnie Montague!” he exclaimed, as she stood back to let him in. Then, “And my goodness – the entire household! Are you all off somewhere?”

  “Arthur, dear boy, how good to see you,” said Lady Sarah. “We are going into Queen Street Gardens with our supper. You will join us, won’t you? I think we have enough to feed the five thousand.”

  “I would be delighted,” said Conan Doyle. “After I have shown you … this!” He held up the magazine with a brilliant smile. It had been folded open to an inner page of narrow columns and a picture illustration beneath a curved title of elaborate letters.

  “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley,” Lady Sarah read aloud. “Oh! Is it your story, in print?”

  “It is, indeed. I am not telling everyone, but you, my dear ladies, are of course the exception.”

  “Oh!” Lady Sarah said again, her voice thrilled as she took the magazine and examined the page. “May I keep this?”

  “You may,” said Conan Doyle. “I have another copy … or two…”

  Lady Sarah went to
one of the cabinets and pulled open a drawer, producing a pen and inkwell. “You must sign it, Arthur, for posterity’s sake.”

  “Oh no, really,” he said. “It’ll probably be the only thing I ever publish.”

  “Pish,” said Lady Sarah. “I am convinced that it is the start of a great literary career and so I insist.” She dipped the pen in the ink and held it out to him, eyebrows raised.

  “Oh, all right then,” he said, with another grin.

  “I shall look forward to reading it later,” Lady Sarah declared, once he had scrawled his signature with a flourish above the title. “Now we must be away or we shall lose that beautiful late-summer light. Perkins, get the door, would you? Children, be careful of the street. Stay behind me.”

  Zinnie held back a moment, watching as Perkins held the door of Montague House open so that the faintly absurd procession could leave through it. Sometimes she still had trouble believing that she wasn’t in some very strange, though wonderful, dream.

  “I can read it to you,” Conan Doyle said, moving to stand beside her. “My story, I mean. You might like it. It’s full of adventure and strange goings-on. Right up your street, I should have thought.”

  Zinnie smiled. “Thanks, but I’ll read it for myself.”

  “You are learning?”

  “I thought I’d try again. It’ll be useful for the expedition. And Lady Sarah has a whole library.”

  Conan Doyle smiled. “Ah yes, the expedition. How goes the planning?”

  “Not sure yet,” she said, hefting a bag of apples and cheese over one shoulder and catching up one of the blankets. “I’ll let you know after supper. Come on – carry your weight. We’re falling behind!”

  She heard Conan Doyle laughing as she nodded good evening to Perkins and headed after her sisters, making for Queen Street Gardens.

  Later, their supper consumed, the sun began to waver and dip over the townhouses of Edinburgh. Conan Doyle had taken his leave some time before, and now Zinnie watched as Aelfine and Nell played pirates with Ruby on the grassy slope below Sadie’s neatly kept new flower bed. Lady Sarah had persuaded the groundsmen to give a patch of land over to plants of a purely medicinal nature. Sadie had overseen the planting and looked after it herself, and together she and the doctor were making a written record of their uses. Sadie was utterly engrossed in the endeavour. Even now she was sitting with her notebook, sketching the dark green leaves of a tall plant that bore white flowers.