Lil sensed a little murmur of interest run around the room as she entered, and several pairs of eyes swivelled in her direction. Realising that most of these girls – and certainly their mamas – had likely seen her in dress shows at Sinclair’s dozens of times, she felt suddenly self-conscious. But there was nothing for it now but to plunge in. She could see Miss Whiteley standing across the room, at the centre of one of the little groups of young ladies.
Miss Whiteley did not look exactly overjoyed to see her coming. She had agreed to the undercover plan with obvious reluctance. Lil suspected that she was not at all keen on the idea of entertaining a mere shop girl to an intimate tea party in her own home, whether disguised as a debutante or not. Well, she would jolly well have to get over such idiotic affected nonsense if she wanted them to find the jewelled moth, thought Lil emphatically, as she strode decisively towards her.
As she did so, she passed a long table covered with a snowy-white cloth and laid with silver stands of cakes and sandwiches, and she forgot all about Miss Whiteley and the jewelled moth for a moment. There were prettily decorated petits fours, luscious strawberry tarts, delicate pastel-coloured macarons, and sandwiches sliced into tiny, perfect triangles. It felt like a very long time since the midday meal in the Sinclair’s refectory, and Lil’s mouth began to water. Just in time, she remembered that she was supposed to be a polite debutante, and glanced away from the glorious spread, hoping that no one had noticed the very unladylike growl her stomach had made.
‘How do you do, Miss Whiteley?’ she said in her most genteel voice as she approached the hostess. Sophie would have been proud of her, she thought, as she smiled. She simply couldn’t have been any more ladylike.
Miss Whiteley, on the other hand, was not much of an actress. She looked distinctly uncomfortable, but nevertheless did as she had promised.
‘Please do call me Veronica,’ she said to Lil stiffly, through tight lips. ‘I’m glad to see you here,’ she added, though she sounded anything but. Then, to the two girls standing immediately beside her, she went on: ‘Phyllis, Mary, this is Miss Rose. Miss Rose, these are Miss Woodhouse and Miss Chesterfield.’
The other two girls eyed Lil curiously as she smiled and bowed, all the while taking them both in. Phyllis was a plump, placidly smiling girl with round pink cheeks. Mary was small and lively-looking. She was dressed like all the other debutantes, but there was something about her that was different – perhaps the way her curly brown hair seemed to be trying to escape from the myriad of pins and combs holding it into place, or the sprinkling of freckles across her nose, or simply the rather jolly-looking twinkle in her eye.
Veronica murmured a polite excuse and moved away.
‘So you’re a friend of Veronica’s?’ asked Mary at once.
‘Oh, just an acquaintance really,’ said Lil, breezily. ‘It was very kind of her to invite me today.’
‘Is this your first Season too?’ asked Phyllis.
‘That’s right,’ said Lil, still smiling.
‘I don’t believe I’ve seen you at any balls,’ said Mary curiously.
‘Perhaps you just haven’t noticed me,’ said Lil, with a little laugh. The demure smile was beginning to feel rather forced now. Mary was looking at her with a penetrating expression: Lil tried to make her own face as bland and innocent as possible, but all the same, felt thoroughly relieved when a maid appeared offering cakes. Lil accepted at once, glad of the distraction as well as awfully hungry. It was only when she had taken a bite of chocolate eclair – simply divine – that she noticed that the other two were not eating anything.
‘Didn’t you want one?’ she asked in surprise, her mouth full of chocolate and cream.
Phyllis was watching her wistfully. ‘It looks awfully delicious,’ she said longingly. ‘They’ve brought in all the cakes from the pâtisserie at Sinclair’s, you know. Heavenly!’
‘Shall I call the maid back?’ asked Lil, looking around for her.
‘Oh no!’ said Phyllis quickly. ‘That is, I couldn’t possibly. Mama wouldn’t like it.’
‘Why?’ asked Lil, baffled, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be being ladylike as she licked the cream off her fingers.
‘I’ve already had three cucumber sandwiches. And a macaron,’ explained Phyllis, her words heavy with meaning.
‘But that’s hardly anything!’ exclaimed Lil. ‘Those sandwiches are the size of a postage stamp.’
‘I know, but Mama says that a young lady ought to have a dainty appetite – which I definitely don’t,’ sighed Phyllis. She turned to Mary, ‘When we went to luncheon with the Whiteleys on Wednesday, Veronica hardly ate anything . Grandmama said afterwards that I ought to take a leaf out of Veronica’s book if I wanted any gentlemen to notice me.’
Mary rolled her eyes. ‘Of course. Because now that she’s managed to catch Lord Beaucastle’s eye, we all have to be exactly like Veronica.’
Lil opened her mouth to try and say something more about Lord Beaucastle – maybe even to lead the conversation around to the garden party – but Mary was looking at her curiously and asked: ‘Doesn’t your mama ever nag you about that sort of thing?’
‘Grandmama made me read the whole chapter on luncheon parties in Lady Diana DeVere’s etiquette book when I got home,’ added Phyllis sorrowfully.
Mary smiled ironically. She quoted:
‘A young maiden’s appetite should be gracefully restrained at all times. There is no more unladylike quality in a debutante than that of intemperate gluttony. ’
‘How fearful!’ exclaimed Lil.
‘I take it that you haven’t read Lady Diana DeVere, then?’ asked Mary, with a quirk of her eyebrows.
Lil decided that there was no sense in pretending. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t, but she sounds perfectly dreadful,’ she said, directly. ‘Look here, Phyllis – I say, you don’t mind me calling you Phyllis, do you? – if you’re worried about your mama catching you eating these glorious cakes, why don’t we just slip around there, behind that screen? No one will be able to see us, and I can see there’s a whole plate of eclairs on that table simply begging to be eaten.’
The other two followed her gaze. ‘Do you know,’ said Mary, slowly, ‘I believe that’s a rather good idea.’
‘Could we really?’ asked Phyllis, her eyes round as saucers.
‘Yes,’ said Mary, ‘and do come quickly, while Lady Alice is looking the other way!’
As they slipped across the room, Mary whispered to Lil: ‘I’m not quite sure what your game is, Miss Rose – but I rather think I like you.’
Two hours later, Miss Whiteley’s tea party was drawing to a close. Ladies were beginning to depart, talking of dressing for dinner and preparing for yet another round of balls and suppers and concerts. Veronica could not help feeling relieved that the gathering was coming to an end. Knowing that Miss Rose was here had made her feel twitchy and out of sorts: it was certainly true that the girl looked the part, but she was not, after all, a real debutante, and there was no knowing what she might say or do. Suppose she asked too many silly questions and gave the game away about the jewelled moth being missing? Suppose she spoke to Isabel and said something idiotic? Really, Veronica felt quite vexed. She had spent so much of the afternoon fretting that she had not been able to enjoy showing off her new tea gown nearly as much as she had expected. Nor had she been able to take satisfaction in being complimented on the beautiful bouquet of roses that Lord Beaucastle had sent her that morning.
To make matters worse, she had got stuck in a long conversation with someone’s tiresome maiden aunt who had really seemed to think she was interested in discussing her church’s charity bazaar for hours at a time. Finally managing to extract herself, she had looked around for someone to talk to – Cynthia, or Dora, or Emily, or goodness knows even Phyllis would do – but they all seemed to have vanished into thin air.
At last, after pacing around the room twice, she found them grouped in a corner, concealed behind an orname
ntal screen and surrounded by cake plates littered in crumbs. Not only Cynthia, Dora and Phyllis, but Mary and Louisa too – and in the centre of their ring was Miss Rose, who was evidently in the midst of relating a very entertaining story. The others were hanging on her every word.
‘And then Miss Pinker said: “And that, Miss Rose, is why you shall never be a credit to the first lacrosse team!”’
The girls erupted into riotous laughter. Veronica stared at them all incredulously. She had never known them to be so rowdy. Whatever had Miss Rose done to them?
‘Have any of you seen Emily?’ she demanded abruptly, noticing that she alone was missing.
Dora goggled at her. ‘Oh, Veronica! Don’t say you haven’t heard?’
‘Heard what?’
‘Why, the simply extraordinary things everyone is saying about Emily, of course,’ said Cynthia, with a little giggle.
‘What things?’ demanded Veronica.
‘She’s gone ! Vamoosed!’
‘Whatever do you mean, she’s gone?’ she snapped.
‘It’s true,’ said Dora. ‘Tell her, Phyllis.’
Phyllis dropped her voice to a low, conspiratorial whisper. ‘Yesterday there was a dreadful uproar next door,’ she said. ‘Then this morning, Mrs Montague came to call upon Mama. She said that no one had seen Emily. She ran away on Wednesday night – eloped, with one of the family footmen! Can you believe it?’
Veronica’s mouth fell open. ‘What – Emily ?’ she said in amazement.
‘Isn’t it shocking?’ exclaimed Cynthia, sounding as though she was enjoying it immensely. ‘It must be so dreadful for her family.’
‘Her mama is terribly upset of course, but I think it’s romantic,’ Phyllis went on. ‘He must have been divinely handsome, and they fell in love, and eloping was the only way they could be together. It’s like something from a novel!’
Veronica could hardly believe her ears. Could this be what had made Emily so distracted at luncheon on Wednesday? Had she been sitting there planning her elopement? What an idiotic thing to do, running off to marry a penniless footman only a few short weeks into her first Season! Veronica had never liked Emily all that much, but she had thought she had more sense.
She snorted. ‘How preposterous!’
‘I never would have pictured Emily as the romantic type,’ said Mary, shaking her head so vigorously that her curls bounced.
‘It’s such a scandal!’ exclaimed Dora.
The girls all looked around at Lil, evidently very interested to hear what she would have to say about the this new piece of gossip, but she had taken advantage of their conversation to tuck into the last of the cakes. ‘Oh, mmm, yes, dreadfully shocking, frightfully scandalous,’ she said hurriedly, through a mouthful of meringue. Veronica stared at her, baffled. How had Miss Rose suddenly become the centre of attention?
‘Everyone is going to be talking about it at Mrs Balfour’s ball tonight,’ said Cynthia gleefully.
‘Oh, Miss Rose, do say you’re coming,’ said Mary, turning to Lil again. ‘We’ll have heaps more fun if you’re there.’
Lil swallowed the last bite of meringue, and looked up into Veronica’s flinty gaze. ‘Well . . . er, I’m not at all sure about that, I’m afraid,’ she said quickly. ‘It all depends on my chaperone. You know, with the mumps and all.’
‘Yes, the poor thing. Don’t you think you really ought to be going now? So that you can see how she is getting on?’ said Veronica in a dangerous voice.
Lil put down her cup. ‘Oh yes, I suppose I really should.’ She grinned at the girls. ‘It was awfully jolly to meet you all. I hope you have a splendid time tonight.’
But Veronica was marching her through the room and out into the hallway almost before she had the chance to finish saying goodbye.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Veronica hissed, as she marshalled Lil towards the door. ‘You were supposed to be finding out information about my missing brooch – not gossiping and . . . and . . . making intimate friends!’
‘But I was finding out information,’ said Lil in surprise. ‘I –’
But the rest of her sentence was not destined to be heard. Before she had got out another word, she found herself standing on Miss Whiteley’s doorstep, with the black shiny front door closed unceremoniously in her face.
CHAPTER NINE
Mei tiptoed up the stairs to the attic, quiet as a mouse in her bare feet. It was very late, and she was not supposed to be out of bed. Mum and Dad had long since blown out their candles; Shen and Jian were buried fathoms deep in dreams; and beside them, Song tossed and turned and muttered to himself, as he often did while he was sleeping. But Mei had been lying awake for what seemed like hours, staring up at the familiar map of cracks in the ceiling, her thoughts flittering as busily as the moth that made dizzy circles around the candle flame. At last, unable to lie there a moment longer, she had clambered out of bed, heading to Uncle Huan’s room.
In the last day or two, Uncle Huan’s empty attic had become a refuge for her. She wasn’t sure exactly why she was drawn to it – perhaps because it wasn’t bare and sad, like Granddad’s old room, or maybe just because she and Song had loved to play up here when they were small. She put her stub of a candle down on the little table that stood by the bed: the small yellow light flickered, chasing the shadows away from the corners.
True sailor that he was, Uncle Huan always left his room perfectly tidy when he was away at sea. A couple of blankets were folded at the foot of the bare mattress; his few books were piled in a neat stack beside the bed; and a cap and scarf hung on a nail behind the door – the whole room was as neat as a pin. Mei dragged a wooden stool over to the window set into the roof, and climbed on to it. She unlatched the window, opened it and leaned out into the smoky night air.
When they were small, she and Song had been delighted by this rooftop view. China Town looked so different from up here – a higgledy-piggledy landscape of grey rooftops and tall chimney pots and sky and sparrows. Once or twice, they had even dared to clamber out of the window and had gone a little way along the roofs of the houses – at first tentatively, and then scampering along the flat strip that ran along their centre as if it was a pathway, delighting in exploring this strange new territory. That was until Mum had got wind of what they were doing, and had expressly forbidden them to go out there, threatening to nail shut Uncle Huan’s window if they ever even thought of doing it again.
But Mei had never before seen the rooftops at night. It was quite dark outside. There was only a sprinkling of stars in the sky above her, and the moon, round as a silver shilling, cast out a cool, pale light. It fell across the rooftops, catching tiles and skylights, making them gleam pearl-white in the dark.
She found herself thinking about how the Moonbeam Diamond had been a gift from the Lady of the Moon to their long-ago ancestor. On a night like this, Mei thought, it was quite easy to imagine the moon as a person; or rather, as a single glowing eye, looking down upon her. She gazed up into the silent sky, and heaved a great deep breath of the cool night air, trying to make sense of her tangled thoughts.
She had felt miserable ever since her conversation with Song in the back room. She heard over again his scornful voice. Don’t be silly. Grow up. You’d never have the pluck. After what he had said, she hadn’t dared mention the diamond to Mum or Dad, especially now that she no longer had the piece of newspaper to show them. Besides, Song had been right about one thing: Mum and Dad already had more than enough to think about. It was rumoured that the Baron had taken charge of the Star Inn. Mr and Mrs Perks were still there, but they’d been told that one of the Baron’s men would be running the show from now on. The Baron’s grip on China Town was tightening. Outside, on the streets, people looked afraid. There had been more gatherings in the Lims’ back room, but fewer of their neighbours joined them now, and those who did seemed jumpy and fearful.
The shop was beginning to look more like its usual self again, but Dad now had a permanentl
y worried expression, and he was still spending most of his time frowning over the accounts. He and Mum had whispered conversations about bills and payments that made Mei feel queasy. Mrs Wu had visited them again, and Mei had seen her crying into her apron as Mum tried to comfort her.
The whole house felt strange. No one was playing the fool now, no one was ragging or laughing – even Shen and Jian were unusually quiet.
In the sudden silence that had fallen over the usually noisy house, Mei had found that she had a lot of time to spend with her own thoughts. She had been thinking as she swept and dusted in the shop, as she carefully refilled jars with tea and toffees, as she arranged tins on the shelves. She had been thinking as she fed Tibby and the green parrot; and she had been thinking as she had lain in bed, wakeful and alone. She was not dreaming any longer, nor telling herself Granddad’s stories. She was thinking about what Song had said to her about trying to get back the diamond – and as she thought, the idea crept up on her that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong.
Of course, there was the chance that it was not the same Moonbeam Diamond. And of course, even if it was the same, it might be that there was no way for her to get it back. Speaking to the young lady who owned it would be difficult, if not impossible. And yet somehow, the thought of the diamond would not leave her alone. If only she could get it back, she was convinced that it would help to protect them.
For a wild moment, Mei imagined herself as a cat burglar, creeping into a strange house by night, and stealing the diamond from the young lady’s jewel cabinet. She would almost be within her rights to do it – she would only be taking back what belonged to her family. But that was ridiculous – perhaps she really had been reading too many stories. She knew that stealing from anyone was wrong, no matter what the circumstances – Mum had taught them that when they were very small, slapping their little hands sharply when they reached towards the jars of sweets in the shop. Besides, Mei added with a small smile to herself, it was just plain silly to imagine herself as a master jewel-thief. Song always said he could hear the clatter of her boots coming a mile off.
The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth Page 7