The Outcast Girls

by Alys Clare

  There is silence in the turret room. Felix has the strange feeling that he can almost see the wildly disturbed air settling again. Lily is bending over Marigold, smoothing the hair from her forehead, speaking softly, her voice and her actions heartbreakingly tender.

  Marigold, he thinks. The child’s name is Marigold Dunbar-Lea. Perhaps simply because she was an easy target for his accomplices, the final victim of Cameron MacKilliver’s misguided and fatal kindness was his old friend’s great-grandniece.

  Moving so that he is standing right beside Hortensia, he bends down and says very softly, ‘Miss Stirling, do you know who this child is?’

  Lily suggests that the best, indeed the only thing, is to bundle Marigold up in warm clothing and take her back to Shardlowes, and Felix agrees. They cannot leave her here, for, despite Hortensia’s guilt and shame, despite the fact that she now knows who Marigold is and, horrified at how close she came to death, is making all sorts of wild promises and saying she’ll prove she means it if only they’ll give her a chance, Lily does not trust her and she senses Felix doesn’t either.

  ‘Marigold comes with my associate and me back to the school, Miss Stirling,’ she says. As she watches the old chin lift and the autocratic expression take shape, Lily adds, ‘Once she has recovered, we shall explain. We’ll say that Cameron was bringing her here to meet you, because you are her great-grand-aunt and her only relation in England, and that he kept it a secret in order to surprise her.’

  Hortensia sniffs disapprovingly, but after a while gives a grudging nod.

  Leaning towards her, Lily says very quietly, ‘That is for Marigold’s benefit, Miss Stirling, to provide an explanation which hopefully will allay her distress. It is not for yours.’

  As she sees them out, Lily supporting Marigold and Felix going on ahead to summon a cab, Hortensia whispers plaintively to Lily, ‘My sister’s great-grandchild! Her beloved Mary’s daughter! Must this be goodbye?’

  Lily, a stern dismissal on her lips, takes in the genuine regret and grief in the old eyes. ‘It will be up to Marigold,’ she says firmly.

  And then, as the cab draws up and Lily begins to help her charge down the steps, Marigold turns and gives the old woman a very sweet smile.

  Between them Felix and Lily manage to keep Marigold half-awake as they help her on and off the ferry, but she sleeps away the train journey to London. As they set out for Cambridge, however, the resilience of youth is already restoring her and she has recovered sufficiently to begin telling Lily and Felix her tale.

  ‘Miss Dickie came to the dormitory in the middle of the night and told me I was coughing and I mustn’t wake the others, and she said I had to go outside into the corridor to be given some cough mixture. Even while she was making me drink it, I was thinking it was not right because it should have been you, Nurse Henry, because you are assistant matron, not Miss Dickie. Then straight away I started to feel strange, muzzy-headed and sleepy, and then Miss Dickie was saying not to worry, everything was all right and she’d look after me, then she, or I think perhaps someone else, a man, put a lovely soft snuggly blanket round me and then I was in a carriage, I think, and there was a hot stone bottle to keep me warm, and a really kind, gentle old man said he had a very special surprise for me and the sooner I went to sleep the sooner I’d find out what it was.’

  Lily is watching her closely for signs of distress as she recalls what happened. So far, she does not see any.

  ‘The journey was so long – at least I have a feeling that it was, although in truth I slept a lot, and the old man looked after me so tenderly and frequently asked if I was warm enough.’ Marigold looks at them, smiling. ‘We went on a boat, and the kindly old man helped me when I stumbled and made someone fetch me a cup of tea, and all the time I knew I ought to be demanding to be told what was happening, where we were going, but he was so kind, and I kept falling asleep, and anyway I felt safe with him.’ She hesitates. ‘I really sensed that he loved me, although I didn’t know why he did.’

  ‘I believe he did, Marigold,’ Lily says quietly.

  Marigold nods. ‘Then there was another carriage ride and we went to a big tall house by the sea, and I was so sleepy, and I thought I was being dressed in pretty nightclothes and put in a little bed, but I think it might have been a dream.’

  ‘I expect it was,’ Lily smiles.

  It is just as well that Marigold should think this; even more fortunate that Lily and Felix got to her when they did. For Hortensia, still in shock at the revelation that the last intended victim of her old friend Cameron MacKilliver was her own great-grandniece, poured out much that she may later regret.

  Watching Marigold sitting up straight, turning frequently to look out of the train window and remark with excitement on what she can see, Lily feels cold all over again as she remembers Hortensia’s words.

  He calms them with sweet drinks laced with laudanum. They are dazed and sleepy and cannot resist. He takes off their clothes, restrains them in the little beds and puts frilly baby bonnets on them to conceal the fact that he has cut off their hair because it is not baby hair, do you see, and it makes them look like women.

  The cracked old voice had gone on and on, and it was as if Hortensia had forgotten Felix and Lily; as if she were kneeling in an imaginary confessional.

  He keeps them sedated and he puts dummies in their mouths, fastening them behind their heads so that their mouths are stoppered and they cannot cry for help. He is disturbed by their developing bodies and he covers them with napkins. One girl had begun to—

  But here Hortensia had shaken her head, for even in her state of shock, some things were too dreadful to recount.

  Sooner or later, however, she had continued, he loses control. The girls become so very scared, you see, they sob, they cry, they try to escape. He drugs them but they wake up. He plays baby games and sings lullabies to soothe them but they will not be soothed, and they grow hysterical and cannot be silenced, and in the end he—

  But she could not bring herself to speak of the end.

  Lily wonders where they are, those poor girls, lost girls, outcast girls. She knows the names of two of them – Cora Naughton-Smythe, aged eleven, Isa Hatcher, aged thirteen. She thinks she can guess at the identity of their predecessors, for she believes theirs are the names in the ledger with the strange little symbol beside them.

  But Mortimer always cleared up after his brother, and without doubt long habit will have ensured he did it thoroughly. He told them himself that there would be no means of proving what Cameron did: there would be no proof, and on that, Mortimer said, they might safely take his word.

  Lily is overcome by a wave of depression that is very close to despair. Her job – hers and Felix’s job – was to find the missing girls. They have failed, for the girls are dead and, apart from one man who will not tell, nobody knows where their poor bodies are.

  Marigold is absorbed in watching a sheepdog herding a flock of sheep, giving an excited commentary on its every clever move. Felix, as if he senses Lily’s mood, turns to her.

  He meets her eyes, and she can see compassion and sympathy in his face. He says – mouths the words, almost, not wanting Marigolds to hear – ‘We saved the last one.’

  And the sudden tears blind her as she nods in agreement.

  NINETEEN

  The station master summons a fly and they are swept through the village and back to Shardlowes. Lily has tried to persuade Felix to return to London; that she and Marigold can perfectly well do this final leg of the journey without him. But he will not hear of it. He has his set expression, and there is no point arguing.

  As the asylum looms up in the distance, she acknowledges to herself that she is actually very glad of his company.

  They find the school superficially calm but with a constant and barely audible buzz of excited, horrified whispering just below the surface. Miss Carmichael, face as white as chalk, meets them in the hall and a cry of relief bursts out of her as she sees Marigold. Respondi
ng to Lily’s curt comment that Marigold needs rest, she nods her approval – not that Lily had sought it – to Lily’s announcement that she’s taking the child straight up to the San and putting her to bed. As Lily helps the exhausted Marigold up the stairs, she hears Felix say quietly to Miss Carmichael, ‘I have something to tell you.’

  Lily wishes that she could stay and be party to what will follow. But for now she is still assistant matron and her duty is to Marigold.

  She had hoped to get the child safely to the sick bay without anybody noticing, but the school is alive with eyes and ears and the upper corridors are lined with avid girls asking questions, demanding explanations, and Lily loses count of the times she says, ‘Not now! Marigold needs rest.’

  The noise precedes them and Matron is standing outside the treatment room, dressed in her full regalia and with a smile of such warmth and kindness that it takes Lily aback. Matron opens her arms and says calmly, ‘Welcome back, Marigold. You must be tired, so bed for you, and cocoa, and a hot water bottle, and anything you would like to eat.’

  ‘Anything? Really and truly?’ Marigold perks up. ‘And cocoa in bed?’

  ‘Cocoa in bed,’ Matron repeats with a chuckle.

  Lily relinquishes her hold on the child, who stumbles forward and is caught by Matron. The two women’s eyes meet over her head.

  ‘Well done,’ Matron says very quietly. ‘I shall care for Marigold now.’

  Lily knows that this is right, for Matron, restored to full health and efficiency, is in charge here now. Nevertheless, as Marigold is helped into the sick bay’s ward, Lily feels such a sense of loss that it momentarily makes her feel faint.

  And Marigold turns, looks straight at her and says with the calm maturity of a much older person, ‘Thank you for bringing me back, Nurse Henry.’

  The door closes and Lily stands alone in the passage.

  It is time to relinquish the nurse’s role and take up that of the enquiry agent. She is not sure if she is relieved or sorry.

  She enters the room off the entrance hall where she first met Miss Carmichael without even a cursory knock. It would not be appropriate, for everything has changed.

  Felix and Miss Carmichael sit in chairs either side of the fireplace, and the mood is so tense that Lily thinks she can hear it creaking.

  Felix gets to his feet and offers her his chair. ‘Miss Carmichael is telling me what has happened,’ he says. ‘Miss Dickinson has been arrested on a charge of abduction, along with her cousin Abraham Salt, who has been acting as her accomplice. There are unconfirmed rumours that some of the asylum staff have been interviewed.’

  Lily glares at Miss Carmichael. ‘You finally found out what has been happening in your school and did something about it,’ she says coldly.

  ‘I—’ Miss Carmichael’s mouth goes on opening and closing but no words emerge. She looks on the point of collapse, but Lily finds it hard to feel pity.

  ‘It was not Miss Carmichael who acted, but Miss Long,’ Felix says.

  ‘Miss Long?’ Lily is greatly surprised.

  ‘Yes,’ Felix replies. ‘She found her courage and went to the police. They knew of this Salt character and his connection with Miss Dickie, and there have been mutterings of some sort of unpleasantness at the asylum and people paid to look the other way.’

  ‘Unpleasantness!’ Lily cries. ‘Is that what it was?’

  ‘I know,’ Felix murmurs, adding in a hiss, ‘Listen, Lily!’ for Miss Carmichael has found her voice and meekly puts her hand up as if asking for permission to speak.

  ‘They – the police’ – an expression of deep distaste twists her face, as if she can hardly bear to utter the word – ‘said there have never been sufficient grounds for action to be taken, but apparently Miss Long insisted.’ She looks as if this was a minor miracle. ‘She— I— We are all very—’ But, overcome, she shakes her head, unable to go on.

  ‘What of you, Miss Carmichael?’ Lily asks coolly. ‘Are you still headmistress?’

  Felix frowns but Lily feels they have a right to know.

  ‘The Band of Angels have written and they propose that I take – er, that is, I am to go on a short holiday. To the seaside. They will come to the school and make an assessment before a decision is made.’ She gulps, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘I didn’t know!’ she cries.

  Lily looks at her then at Felix. He shakes his head.

  ‘Who will act as headmistress in your absence?’ Lily asks.

  ‘Miss Mallard,’ Miss Carmichael mutters from behind the handkerchief she is pressing to her face. She removes it and looks straight at Lily. ‘I have promoted Miss Long to the position of Head of Junior House,’ she says, sitting up a little straighter, ‘for I feel she deserves it.’

  Quite shortly afterwards, Lily and Felix stand in the hall. He is about to go, and Eddy has been sent for with the trap.

  ‘Either Miss Carmichael truly didn’t know what was going on in her school and her only fault was being too willing to dismiss the problem of the missing girls,’ Lily mutters, ‘or she’s desperately covering her tracks.’

  ‘She may well pay for it either way,’ Felix replies shortly.

  He is, Lily reflects, inclined to be rather more lenient with Miss Carmichael than she is. But then, she thinks, it is not he who has been assistant matron here.

  There is a soft tap on the door.

  ‘That’ll be Eddy,’ Lily says, going to open it.

  But it is not Eddy who stands beneath the porch. It is a tall, masculine-looking woman in blue gabardine, gaunt-faced beneath an unflattering hat.

  She reaches out a hand in a leather glove and grasps Lily’s arm. ‘Is she all right?’ she asks, and there is deep anxiety in the light-brown eyes.

  Lily knows without asking who she means.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, putting her hand over the woman’s.

  The woman sags in relief. Then, straightening her shoulders, she says, ‘My name is Dora Tewk, and I must speak to you in private.’

  Lily leads the way to the little pavilion beside the lawn where she sat with Marigold. It is cold outside, but Dora Tewk and Felix are dressed for outdoors and Lily has fetched her warm cloak. They sit down, Dora Tewk in the middle, and she begins to speak.

  ‘I am the nurse who had the care of Marigold Dunbar-Lea,’ she begins, ‘and it was I who brought her home to England. I have a position with a widower academic and his family in Cambridge and I have been keeping an eye on Marigold, bringing her little gifts, for the last nine years.’

  There is a short silence. The Felix says, ‘You have shown rare devotion, Miss Tewk.’

  She shrugs. ‘Marigold is a very special child.’

  ‘How did you—’ Lily begins, but Dora Tewk turns to her with a smile and says courteously, ‘I believe it will be best if I tell my tale in my own way. With your permission?’

  ‘Of course,’ Lily says.

  ‘I was trained in London and I went out to India with a major in the Ninth Lancers, his wife and baby son,’ Dora Tewk says. ‘After only eighteen months, however, my charge died of cholera, along with his mother.’ Dora Tewk maintains an expressionless face but she cannot control herself entirely, and tears fill her light-brown eyes before she blinks them away. ‘The major was willing to pay my passage back to England but I preferred to stay in Lucknow, and I was re-engaged by Roderick Dunbar-Lea and his wife Mary to look after their little girl, whose name was Marigold.’ She smiles. ‘That was in February 1869, and Marigold was a week old.’

  She looks at Lily. ‘You will no doubt know what is wrong with her, for you too have had the care of her. Poor little Marigold was born with a malformed, foreshortened leg, a hare lip and a cleft palate. The lip was dealt with very soon after birth, adequately but not with any degree of skill or consideration for the child’s future looks. Her upper lip was left shortened, and she had an unsightly scar. The cleft palate was deemed too tricky to risk an operation by a local man. Roderick would only consider army surgeons, and was
probably quite right not to trust them with his little daughter, but had he overcome his prejudices and engaged an Indian doctor, Marigold would have been made whole by the most skilful, careful hands, and life would have turned out very differently.’

  There is a pause. Then she says, ‘What you will not know – for how could you? – is her father’s reaction to his damaged daughter. In short, he found his flawed child an embarrassment. He was, and I am sure still is, a dangerously handsome man and he was married to a beautiful, modest and intelligent woman, yet between them this golden couple produced what in his eyes was a deformed child. He could not bear to watch little Marigold trying to walk, for her malformed leg meant that although she moved about at a fair pace, she was forced to adopt an ungainly waddle. Furthermore, he could not bear to hear her trying to talk, for the fissure in the roof of her mouth means, as no doubt you have observed, that she has great difficulty pronouncing many of the consonants and all of the diphthongs.’

  ‘I learned to understand her very quickly,’ Lily says.

  Dora Tewk smiles. ‘I too, and her mother. Her father, however, lacked the patience and, I believe, the desire.’ She frowns. ‘And so he decided that Marigold must be removed from his sight and, indeed, from his life. He and Mary would have more children, he was quite sure of that; they would be healthy, whole and, with any luck, some of them would also be male.’

  ‘And so you were commanded to bring Marigold back to England,’ Felix says.

  Dora Tewk nods. ‘Indeed so. I was the obvious choice. That I might have preferred to stay in India was neither here nor there, for there was nobody else suitable and Marigold knew me well after nearly four years in my care.’ She adds softly, ‘For myself, I loved her – love her still – and could not have borne to abandon her to a stranger.’

  ‘And what happened once you were in England?’ Felix asks.

  Lily flashes him a look. There is something about him … he is eager, straining forward, as if he would draw Miss Tewk’s words out of her.