The Outcast Girls

by Alys Clare

  It is time, Felix thinks, to steer her back.

  ‘You were speaking of a great-granddaughter, and what Adeline did about her,’ Felix prompts softly, although he already knows.

  ‘Hm? What?’ With some difficulty Hortensia brings herself back into the present. ‘Oh … there were problems, health difficulties – the child had had an operation but it hadn’t gone well, and she was a funny-looking little thing. Didn’t walk properly – something amiss with one leg.’ Her eyes turn inwards again. ‘Odd, how nature works. Roddy was a very handsome man and as for Mary, she was nothing less than beautiful. For that golden couple to produce such a child was the worst luck. Of course, the little cripple’s appearance was the reason she was shipped home to Adeline with that tediously devoted nursemaid.’

  She looks up at Felix again, apparently recalling the question. ‘As to what Adeline did, she wrote to me with the problem, and I came up with the solution.’ She preens herself.

  Felix has the strange sensation that the truth is appearing beneath a rapidly clearing layer of cloud. ‘And what did you suggest?’ he asks quietly.

  ‘Well, Cameron had only recently been to visit – I just told you that! – and he’d been full of this school in Cambridgeshire to which he and the Band of Angels were being so very generous, and he described how they took girls from a very young age and how most of them became permanent boarders, and I thought, my goodness, the very thing for Adeline’s great-granddaughter! Naturally I said as much to Cameron, and he said it sounded as if the school was absolutely right for the child, so I wrote to Adeline and in next to no time the child was off her hands and happy as could be, I have no doubt, at this school …’ She frowns deeply for a moment and then shouts triumphantly, ‘Shardlowes! I knew I’d remember! Shardlowes School, in a village just outside Cambridge!’

  And Felix, chilly with dread, thinks, a village with an asylum where Cameron MacKilliver is a regular in-patient.

  As if Hortensia’s recovery of an elusive memory is sparking off one of his own, all at once he knows why the name Dunbar-Lea is familiar. He lunges for the chair where Lily was sitting and scoops up the little bag she has left on the floor beneath it. Hortensia’s scandalized expression as she watches him wrest it open and thrust his big male hand inside would be funny in any other circumstances, but in this awful moment he has room for no thought but Miss Long’s letter …

  … and its fateful words.

  He looks up, straight into Hortensia’s worried face.

  ‘Is the child’s name Marigold?’ he demands, the words emerging with such urgent anxiety that she flinches.

  ‘Yes!’ she cries, her expression turning rapidly from amazement that he should know to a horrified realization of what this might mean.

  But Felix has no time for her now.

  For it has just occurred to him that it is rather a long time since Lily went upstairs.

  EIGHTEEN

  With fear swiftly rising to horror at what she will find, Lily is stealthily climbing up through the tall house with its many levels and tucked-away rooms. Up to the second floor, and here is the little door that opens on to the spiral stair. Fighting to control her shaking legs, she climbs to the top. One hand reaches for the little glass bottle on its chain, hidden under her clothes. She bends under a low lintel, emerging into a set of rooms at the very top of the house, several doors opening off the main room. Windows overlook the sea.

  A large man dressed in dark coat and trousers stands with his back to her, peering round the partly drawn curtains to the lively sea below. Hearing her footsteps, he turns round, his forefinger to his lips.

  ‘Quietly now,’ he says softly, smiling sweetly. ‘We must not wake her.’

  ‘Very well,’ Lily replies, keeping her voice low.

  He stands beaming at her, apparently not fazed by her presence. He is broad, his belly pushes the costly but stained and dirty fabric of his waistcoat into a dome, and his legs look too thin to hold up his bulk. His shirt is none too clean. He has a shock of white hair which stands up like a halo around his head. He is clean-shaven, and the flesh of his plump face is as pink and shiny as if Nanny has just given it a good scrub. His eyes are round and blue, and they are full of childlike trust.

  Presently he says, ‘Have you come to take her away?’

  Lily recognizes the voice. She thinks she has heard it before, in the darkness beneath her window at Shardlowes. Not sure how to answer, she says, ‘For now I just want to make sure she is all right. I’m a nurse, you see.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, of course you are, I see your uniform!’ Cameron claps his hands. ‘Now I understand.’ He turns, trotting across to the open door into a second room. ‘There she is,’ he mouths, pointing.

  Lily sees a very small bed made of white-painted wood with railings like those of a cot, although it is larger than a cot. The foot end is painted in soft pastel colours: an image of lambs playing in a flowery meadow. There is a fluffy pink wool blanket neatly folded on the side rail.

  ‘She was too hot, so I took off the top cover,’ Cameron whispers right behind her, making her jump and then shudder in dread at his nearness. ‘You must assess whether a child is warm enough by touching the back of the neck, not the forehead as so many people do. But I expect you know that already.’ She turns and he is smiling at her, his eyes wide.

  She makes herself turn her back on him. She must.

  She bends over the cot.

  Marigold lies deeply asleep, her soft light brown hair spread over the little white pillow in its frilled, lace-edged pillow case; across one corner the word Baby is embroidered in chain-stitched pink silk. Glancing at the small table beside the little bed, Lily spots a large bottle of laudanum, a flask of water, a spoon and a pretty little silver mug. Marigold lies on her side, one arm and shoulder out from the light covering bedclothes. She is dressed in a pink nightgown with short sleeves and a yoke from which the generously gathered fabric hangs.

  ‘I shall cut her hair and put on her bonnet presently,’ Cameron whispers, and Lily sees he has in his hand a baby’s bonnet in white cotton, large enough for a girl’s head.

  Lily hesitates.

  She does not know this alarmingly strange man; she has no idea what he will do if she tries to thwart him.

  But she cannot allow him to cut poor little Marigold’s hair.

  Cannot allow him, in fact, any further access to her helpless body.

  She thinks for quite a long time – Cameron has turned away and is looking down at the sea again, humming to himself; it sounds like ‘Baa Baa, Black Sheep’ – and she feels no threat from him.

  For now.

  She makes up her mind.

  She puts her plan, such as it is, into action.

  Drawing herself up straight, assuming her full authority as the trained and experienced nurse that she is, she says softly, ‘Cameron? Is it all right if I call you Cameron?’

  He spins round to look at her. ‘Of course, for it is my name!’ he says with a smile.

  ‘Thank you. My name is Lily.’

  ‘Lily! Very pretty.’

  ‘Cameron,’ she says while he stands there beaming at her, ‘I do not believe that this little girl belongs here with you, although I know how much you want to take care of her.’

  He nods with the wild, uncontrolled action of an enthusiastic child. ‘I do, yes I do want to care for her!’ he agrees. ‘She doesn’t belong here?’ Now he is frowning, and Lily senses the very edge of danger.

  Silently saying, I’m sorry, dear Marigold, I’m so sorry, Lily draws back the bedclothes. ‘She is imperfect, you see’ – she points to the sad little inward-turning foot – ‘and to make her perfect she needs professional attention of the sort that I do not believe you can provide. Although I know you would if you could!’ she adds as Cameron’s scowl deepens into something worse.

  He does not speak.

  ‘And there is her lip, and the cleft inside her mouth.’ Lily touches Marigold’s upper lip and very ge
ntly opens her mouth. She does not respond, and Lily suspects he has given her a large dose of the laudanum. ‘Both these issues can be corrected, but it is a skilful task and she will need the very best of care.’

  ‘She has to stay here,’ Cameron states firmly. ‘She must be with me, for I have to stop her growing up.’

  ‘I can help,’ Lily says, trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact as if she has conversations like this every day. ‘The operations on her foot and on her mouth will simply make her prettier.’

  Now he begins to look doubtful. ‘Will they?’

  ‘Yes.’ She is praying now, praying very hard, and she has gradually moved so that she stands between Cameron and the unconscious Marigold.

  ‘But I know how to stop it, you know,’ Cameron says in a sing-song voice that is the most frightening of all. ‘I love these little ones, you see, Nurse, and it is up to me to keep them in their childhood innocence, for otherwise they grow, they turn into women’ – the word is a barely audible whisper, and he seems to shy away from it as if it terrifies him – ‘and I know what happens then for I have seen it, and it is terrible, the agony, the blood, the pain, the grief, and I cannot, I must not, let it happen to my wee ones.’

  Lily faces him. She gathers her courage and stares into his mad eyes. ‘I shall take her and I shall look after her,’ she says calmly.

  He is still staring at her, his eyes so wide that there is white all round the blue irises.

  Slowly, steadily, she turns away and reaches down into the cot. She puts an arm beneath Marigold’s shoulders, another under her thighs, and starts to lift. Marigold is heavy, though, heavier than she looks, and Lily falters. She moves the arm under the child’s thighs a little and tries again.

  And then there is a whooshing sound; as if something large is flying through the air. Lily spins round, and her astonishment at what she sees causes the muscles in her arms and back to respond so that Marigold’s inert weight falls back into the cot.

  She is trying to look in two directions simultaneously, because she cannot believe what she is seeing.

  Cameron MacKilliver is standing in front of her and behind her.

  But there is no time to puzzle it out, no time to think at all in the two or three seconds that pass as the something large continues its fight. Then the heavy china jug crashes against the back of her head and she slumps down onto the dusty-smelling carpet.

  Lily opens her eyes.

  She is sitting on the floor, propped up against a velvet-covered chair. Her head hurts.

  She looks up.

  Cameron MacKilliver stands before her, exactly where he was standing before, and happily there is only one of him now. She says croakily, ‘What happened?’

  ‘The weight of the child was too much for you,’ he replies. ‘You lost your footing and you fell.’

  This does not tally with her own idea of what has just happened, but she does not say so. Her vision is muzzy, and she blinks a few times.

  She can see him more clearly now and what she sees confuses her. It is the same man, yet he is not the same … The coat and trousers are of very similar dark, good cloth, yet they seem fresher and they fit him better; the white shirt is clean.

  ‘What is it?’ he asks. His face is sweating, he is twitchy and tense, and as if that were not enough, his voice has changed …

  ‘You—’ she begins.

  His expression darkens. ‘Yes?’ he murmurs. Even the one word sounds ominous.

  Lily glances up at the cot. Marigold is stirring; she moans softly, and her exposed arm twitches.

  ‘I must see to the child,’ Lily says, and with difficulty she raises herself up, stage by laborious stage, until she is standing. She hopes he cannot detect that her legs are shaking.

  She leans over Marigold, touching her very gently on the forehead. She is clammy and hot, and as Lily puts her fingers on the child’s wrist she detects a racing pulse.

  ‘Marigold needs help,’ she says very calmly. ‘She has been given rather a lot of laudanum, and now she must be allowed to wake up and—’

  He makes a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Laudanum,’ he repeats. ‘It is so hard to judge aright, and that has been the perpetual problem. At first they have to be kept sedated, for otherwise they become distressed, and something has to be done to stop their sobbing.’

  Lily feels a chill creep over her.

  ‘Is that how they died?’ she asks, keeping her voice as quiet and gentle as she can. ‘They cried out, perhaps realizing the danger they were in, and they had to be kept quiet? With more laudanum? With a pillow over the face?’ She nods in the direction of the little pillow in the pretty white case embroidered with Baby.

  ‘I – he—’

  But whatever he was about to say remains unspoken.

  There are footsteps on the stairs – loud, heavy footsteps – and a voice is bellowing ‘Lily! Lily! Are you hurt?’

  His sweaty face falls in despair, but in the blink of an eye the expression is replaced by another. He lunges at Lily, one hand in the cot and on Marigold’s innocent exposed throat, the other grasping for Lily, tangling in her hair, twisting her somehow so that an all but unbearable pain bursts out in her neck …

  … and then Felix is there.

  His eyes widen in horror, he takes in the situation at a glance and hurls himself forward.

  But his adversary is ready. He still has hold of Lily but he has abandoned Marigold and he has something in his free hand.

  It glitters as its blade catches the light.

  Lily screams out a warning but Felix ignores it.

  His impetus is such that he probably couldn’t stop even if he wanted to, and the bulk of his big body crashes into Lily’s captor. He cries out and just as Lily feels she can’t stand the agony in her neck a second longer, it is gone.

  Nevertheless, there are large black spots floating in front of her eyes. She bends over, letting the blood flood into her head, and after the briefest of time straighten up again.

  Her eyes shoot to Felix.

  He returns her anguished look and quickly says, ‘I’m all right. Not hurt.’

  She spins round to look at Marigold, who is asleep once more.

  Finally she looks at her assailant, being held down very firmly in a little nursery chair by Felix’s superior weight and strength.

  And into this frozen tableau the colourful figure of Hortensia Stirling emerges, panting from her hurried climb up the stairs.

  She takes in the four figures in the turret room and demands, ‘Where’s Cameron?’

  ‘There,’ Felix says, indicating the man in the chair.

  But Hortensia shakes her head, her expression scathing.

  ‘That’s not Cameron, it’s Mortimer.’

  ‘I shall send for the police,’ Felix says firmly.

  ‘No,’ Mortimer says forcefully. The two men glare at each other. ‘I beg you, do not,’ Mortimer goes on more calmly. He looks at Marigold, who is struggling to raise her head and opening and closing her eyes groggily, her expression deeply puzzled. She is holding Lily’s hand so tightly that Felix can see Lily wincing.

  ‘No harm has been done,’ Mortimer says very softly to Felix.

  ‘Girls have died! Two women have been killed!’ Felix speaks in a furious whisper, aware that this is not fit for Marigold’s ears.

  ‘Where is the proof?’ Mortimer shoots back. ‘None will be found, and on that you may safely take my word.’

  ‘But your brother is—’

  ‘My brother is a simple soul,’ Mortimer interrupts. ‘He is an innocent who does not understand the world. He acted out of love and a desire to save his beloved girls from growing up.’ His expression is anguished. ‘He could never stand the weeping, it broke his poor heart.’

  ‘And the older girl, Esme Sullivan?’

  ‘She was clever. She traced her missing fellow pupils all the way to Cameron’s lair.’ He lifts a hand in an elegant gesture, indicating the turret rooms. ‘She accused Cameron and
began yelling at him, courageous girl that she was, and once again he couldn’t stand the noise of her distress; he put his hands on her throat and the next thing he knew, she was dead.’ Mortimer pauses. ‘I put her body in the sea. And I knew about the English teacher too,’ he goes on before Felix can ask. ‘I had word from Shardlowes that she was also on the trail and I approached her on the train. There was an altercation and she fell from the carriage.’ Briefly he drops his head in his hands. ‘I journeyed on to Portsmouth and later returned to find her bag and small valise.’

  There is silence in the turret room.

  Into it Hortensia asks again, ‘Where is Cameron?’

  With a sudden, sharp exclamation Felix leaps up and over to the slightly open window.

  The body of a large man is lying on the hard ground at the foot of the tower. A great pool of blood surrounds his head.

  Mortimer emits one great sob, quickly suppressed. ‘He jumped,’ he whispers. ‘I tried and failed to stop him. Is he dead?’

  ‘I believe so, yes,’ says Felix quietly.

  Then he turns and his eyes meet Lily’s.

  And he knows full well she is thinking exactly what he is: Do we believe him? Or did Cameron’s identical twin push him to his death?

  Relieved of Felix’s restraining weight, Mortimer is getting to his feet. Walking towards the door, where Hortensia steps out of the way. They hear his footsteps descending the spiral stair.

  Lily says sharply, ‘Felix!’

  And, knowing exactly what she wants of him, he says, ‘You think I should run after him, apprehend him, get him in an arm lock and march him to the nearest police station? And then what, Lily?’

  Even in her distress and pain, she too understands.

  Mortimer MacKilliver is a man of wealth, status and influence. Felix has none of those advantages.

  If Felix were to blurt out his extraordinary tale and his accusations as he thrust Mortimer at some bemused policeman – aiding an abductor, involvement in a suspicious death on a train, disposing of bodies, the assault on Lily – it is pretty obvious, in the absence of any proof or corroborating evidence, which one of the two of them would end up in the cells.