A Scandal in Battersea Read online

  The girl wiped her tears from her face and blinked at them. “There is a name for what happens to me?”

  Nan considered her for a moment. She had been under the impression that Amelia must be of the age of majority, but looking at her now that she had been put to rights, Nan revised that downward. She could not be more than sixteen—possibly as young as fourteen.

  This time Sarah answered. “Did you think you were the only one?”

  “I—” Amelia hesitated. “I never heard of anyone doing such things except in ghost stories and the like. When it first started happening I was quite certain I was going mad, and I begged my family to send me here before I could do something to shame them all.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “My sister is going to be coming out. I couldn’t bear to spoil that for her. My family is going to tell people I have gone to Switzerland to a finishing school. Not even the servants know I am here.”

  All right, at least that part of the story is true.

  “Then Doctor Huntley discovered that the horrible things I had been seeing were actually true.” She shuddered. “But I still didn’t know what to do about them. They were happening miles from me. I wasn’t seeing them ahead of time, so there was nothing I could do to stop them from happening, and he said the police would never believe me if I spoke to them and described the murderers.”

  And there’s the first lie. Or at least, the shading of the truth.

  “I couldn’t make the visions stop. And I couldn’t see anything but what was . . . imposed on me. I couldn’t see pleasant things, no matter how hard I tried for Doctor Huntley.” Tears spilled over her cheeks again. “I don’t want to see these things! And I can’t make them stop!”

  Nan patted her hand. “That is why we are here. I am afraid Doctor Huntley is . . . far out of his area of expertise,” she said, a little grimly. He’s a mere child playing with explosives, is what he is! she thought, but did not say. “Would you object to coming away with us, to a school where there are children who also have these abilities? They would be very much younger than you,” she added, as John Watson nodded significantly, and gave Mary his hand. “But you will be taught how to control this—and, if you truly do not want to make any use of it, how to shut it down.”

  John and Mary left, presumably in search of Huntley. Amelia wiped her eyes with the edge of the sheet, looking even younger than her years. “It would be . . . not so bad if I could see pleasant things,” she answered after a moment, and managed a wavering smile. “Think of how jolly it would be if one could go to the theater from one’s own bed!”

  “And think of the money you’d save on tickets!” Sarah replied, with a broad grin.

  Her smile faded. “But if what I saw was not real. . . .”

  “I think it might have been a metaphor,” Nan said quickly. “You have been seeing horrid things for some time. You know now these things were real, and all were happening in London. Perhaps deep inside, you have come to think of London as a terrible, apocryphal place, full of monsters, and when another horrific vision began, instead of seeing that exact scene, your mind just created a scene out of that metaphor rather than subjecting you to another terrible murder. Just like when you dream of flying, it just means you want some freedom from some tedious task or other.”

  She didn’t believe that, of course. Not in the least. She wasn’t sure what she believed, but it wasn’t that. And what had the child meant when she muttered “The Book!” over and over? Evidently Amelia didn’t remember that part.

  “I do always dream of flying right after I’ve had to do something dreadfully boring,” Amelia replied, and the tight lines of her face relaxed, she sighed, and let go of her death grip on the covers.

  Then she yawned, hugely, and her eyes began to flutter. “I’m dreadfully sorry,” she began, and yawned again.

  “You didn’t sleep for two days,” Nan reminded her. “Go on, put your head down. I doubt you’ll have another such vision any time soon, and by that point, we’ll have arranged for you to go to that school.”

  “I really shouldn’t . . .” but Amelia’s willpower had been exhausted by her struggle against that vision; helplessly, she slid down into her bed as her eyes closed, and in moments, she was fast asleep.

  “Can you do anything to keep her from getting another vision?” Sarah asked anxiously.

  “I think she’s so overtired there isn’t a chance of her having one until she’s regained her strength,” Nan replied. “Well, think about us. We couldn’t do a thing with our abilities if we were tired. I just hope John and Mary can put the fear of retribution into that Huntley character. I don’t think he was trying to help her turn her visions off at all. I think he was experimenting with drugs to strengthen her ability. I think he had some notion of profiting off it, and I think the last concoction he gave her is responsible for that fit she went into.”

  Sarah frowned. “I’d like to disagree with you, but I have the dreadful feeling you might be right. What do you think John and Mary will say?”

  “I think they’ll brandish the possibility of Sherlock Holmes turning up here at him,” Nan replied, and chuckled. “If he’s doing anything dubious, that will be the very last person he would want to see on these premises. It’ll be subtle, I expect. Huntley isn’t some common thug. But the implication will be very clear: release this child to Memsa’b, or be prepared to have every secret of this place revealed—possibly to the public.”

  “And if he actually has nothing to hide—” Sarah said thoughtfully, “—I suspect the next rabbit to be pulled from the hat will be Lord A.”

  “Very likely.” Nan moved off the bed so the poor girl could spread out a little. Sarah followed her example and took the chair by the window. “I have to say, this seems to be a pleasant enough place. I find myself hoping Huntley is merely a man who yielded to temptation, and is about to learn his lesson.”

  “Or already has,” Sarah suggested.

  “Or that,” Nan agreed. “And if that is the case, John and Mary can steer him gently into the path of righteousness, and we’ll have a physician-believer who can keep alert for patients who we can help. Clearly, young Amelia made a believer out of him, if he wasn’t one already.”

  Sarah picked up one of the books on the table, and examined it. “Well, she’s a good reader, and a serious one.” She held it up. “The Sermons of John Donne.”

  “Too deep for me,” Nan chuckled and looked at the next volume. “I’ll take the companion here—the Poems of John Donne.”

  “I like her very much already. I think Memsa’b will too.”

  Sarah moved to the arm of the chair where she, being smaller, could perch comfortably. Nan took the seat. They immersed themselves in their respective books, glancing up now and again at the girl to make sure she was still sleeping peacefully.

  Amelia continued to sleep, and they continued to read. Outside, the snow-covered landscape was peaceful, serene, without a single footprint to mar it. Inside, it was quiet, but not ominously so. There were distant sounds, of conversation, perhaps. Nan spared a hope that even those who were deranged were taken care of with kindness. Normally she had to put up mental defenses as strong as stone walls to get anywhere near an asylum.

  Eventually, there was a tap on the door, and John cautiously stuck his head in the door, saw that Amelia was sleeping and the two young women were reading, and he and Mary entered quietly. “It’s all arranged. I’ll tell you in the cab.”

  They all went back downstairs, collected cloaks and coats from the attendant. By the time they were at the door, so was the cabby—who looked warm and fed and satisfied with his wait.

  John waited until they were actually past the gate before speaking. “Well . . . Huntley is a bit of a humbug, but only a bit. As you might expect, he takes in . . . people who are inconvenient to their relatives. Most of ’em shouldn’t be here, frankly, and I imagine that you have good
ideas of why.”

  “He does have some genuine convalescents who need skilled nursing, and not a ham-handed chambermaid,” Mary put in. “And some very aged people who need round the clock care. There may even be a few who genuinely are mad, but most of his ‘patients’ with that label have merely so displeased powerful and monied relations that they’ve been sent here—out of sight, out of mind.”

  “He’s not a monster; once they’re here, he treats them well . . . but . . .” John made a face. “It’s a very comfortable prison, but it’s still a prison.”

  “But as long as the law is written the way it is, it’s perfectly legal to declare a disobedient daughter or eccentric uncle insane and lock them up,” Mary said with disgust. “Nevertheless, that gave us the chance to mention Holmes, which of course, is the very last person on the face of the earth he wants prowling about. So he’s going to quietly transfer Amelia without telling her parents—who won’t care, frankly, since they haven’t written or made a call since she volunteered to be locked up here.”

  Nan sighed. “That’s a relief. What was he doing with her, anyway? I began to very much doubt he was trying to help her repress her visions.”

  “Not with the drugs he was giving her, he wasn’t,” John said, his expression darkening. “And I wish I could prove he knew what he was about, but I can’t. I think he was trying to turn her into his own little window into places he couldn’t otherwise get to . . . collecting secrets. Again, I don’t think he was intending to turn blackmailer—I fancy he was looking for business secrets he could use to increase his fortune by investing. But he was trying every line of drug that I know of that is reputed to open magical and psychical senses, and I think we’re damned lucky he didn’t kill the poor girl with them.”

  “Then she can’t get to Memsa’b soon enough,” Sarah exclaimed. “The poor child!”

  “Child, indeed, she’s barely fourteen,” said Mary, confirming Nan’s suspicions. “John made arrangements for Memsa’b herself to come collect the girl in two days, and believe me, Huntley will make no fuss about it.” She held up a hand. “Don’t worry, once he consented to it, John and I both sealed a geas on him, by Water and Air, to keep his word. No matter how badly he wants to change his mind, he’ll still have to give her up, and smile about it. So no fear there.” She finally smiled. “At least our magic has had some use in this situation.”

  “Now I’m curious, Nan, what exactly did you see in Amelia’s mind?” John Watson asked, eying her speculatively.

  She described everything she had seen; he had taken out his little notebook and was jotting things down as she spoke. When she finished, he shook his head.

  “Well, all I can say is, this is nothing like the other visions she had,” he said. “Huntley took very careful notes, and documented everything with newspaper clippings. I’ll grant him this much, he has a first-class mind when it comes to science. Amelia did, indeed, witness several murders—horrific, I am sure, to her, and to Huntley, who doesn’t seem to have seen a cadaver outside the dissecting room. But fairly run-of-the-mill for London. Tragic, cold-blooded, absolutely, but nothing you young ladies or Mary or I would witness and fall into hysterics over. By Jove, even your little Suki has seen worse with her own two eyes.”

  “I wondered about that,” Nan said, frowning. “That is what makes this vision so troubling to me. And I absolutely do not myself believe that Banbury tale I spun for her about it being a ‘mental metaphor’ for the very real horrors of London.”

  “But it certainly wasn’t reality, since we just came from London, and it’s not crawling with monsters,” Mary objected, looking extremely skeptical.

  “Nor can I imagine how London could end up that way,” John agreed. “Why . . . on the face of it, that’s impossible. Mary and I and every other Master and magician would have to be dead, first.”

  Nan kept her mouth shut. She remembered all too clearly how London had very nearly become a frozen wasteland many years ago, and how Robin Goodfellow himself had been willing to bring the terrifying powers of something not unlike a minor god against Lord Alderscroft to keep that from happening. So . . . on the face of it, it wasn’t impossible.

  “Report it all to Alderscroft anyway,” she suggested. “He may have some ideas of what it all means.”

  John shrugged, a little skeptically, but agreed. “In any event, we’ve done a good day’s work, ladies. And I suggest that since you want this reported to Alderscroft anyway, we go straight there and partake of his hospitality while he has the townhouse open. We should arrive just in time for luncheon.”

  “John!” Mary laughed.

  “I believe there’s a Bible verse about not binding the mouths of the cattle that thresh your corn,” he countered. “And this old bull could do with a good feed.”

  4

  ALEXANDRE frowned in concentration, bent over his writing desk, though not in a flurry of creation. His creative spates rarely lasted more than an hour or two at best, though of course, poetry did not require long periods of thought and hours and hours of writing the way prose did. But he had been at this task for hours, and expected to be at it for hours more. Days, actually. This was going to take days, even if he kept at it from the time he rose until the time he went to bed. Which he fully intended to do—not only did he feel a fever to get this accomplished, but it was an excellent way in which to avoid Christmas nonsense altogether.

  The Book—he was starting to think about it with capital letters—had been handwritten, which made it problematic when it came to using it for actual ritual work. One minor mispronunciation, and all your hard work would go straight out the window—or worse. Although he himself had never had anything backfire, there were stories . . . and he had no intention of becoming another one of those stories. So he was copying The Book, word by word, taking great pains to make sure he clearly understood every word, in his own printed writing. Not script. While Eton had given him beautiful copperplate handwriting, even that was problematic when it came to reading something in a ritual. He had a dozen other books on the desk beside him, using them as references for words he was not sure he had made out clearly.

  Mind, even that was not as much help as it might have been. There were many names in The Book that he not only was not familiar with, but could not find in his references. It was taking a great deal of concentration to compare letters in these names to similar letters in familiar words elsewhere on the page, verifying each unfamiliar word letter by letter.

  He had finally abandoned this task last night about midnight when he no longer trusted the light and his tired eyes. He had begun it again as soon as he arose. It amused him to think, when he paused to rest for a moment, that he was taking more pains with this—and working harder at it—than he had for his viva voce exams at the University.

  On the other hand, if this Book was going to give him what he thought it would—it would be worth a hundred times more than any University degree.

  Every so often he had to rest his eyes and his cramping fingers. And were this any other task, he would have fortified himself with wine, whiskey, or even just beer. But . . . no. It would be monumentally foolish to have performed all this work only to have alcohol fuddle him at some critical point. So he directed Alf to keep him supplied with hot tea and soldiered on.

  It was exacting and meticulous work. And while not exciting in and of itself, the potential was enthralling.

  He was in the middle of his second day of it when, to his intense irritation, he was interrupted.

  “Pardon, guv,” Alf said from behind him, delicately timing his speech to make sure Alexandre’s pen was not on the page. “The soli’ster’s here.”

  There was only one “solicitor” who came here, and that was the administrator of his father’s estate. And although he was, at this moment, the very last person in the world that Alexandre wanted to see, he was one who should be seen. There were certain inconveni
ent provisions in his father’s will that meant that until Mother died (and may she do so soon, he thought), it was incumbent on him to at least put up the appearance of obeying.

  “Send him in,” Alexandre said with irritation, and carefully capped the inkwell, cleaned the pen, and set the page he was working on aside, making sure the marble “rule” he was using to mark the place in the page he was working on was firmly in place. By the time the solicitor was ushered into his study, he was on his feet and presenting every evidence of affable welcome.

  He knew what the man would see; a room meant for work, with the writing desk at the window for the best light, a good fire in the fireplace, plenty of lamps. Lined with books the solicitor was utterly uninterested in, for aside from law, he did not read. Good, solid furniture, a decent carpet, nothing ostentatious. If the man had had even half a notion of what those books lining the walls held between their covers—but he didn’t.

  “Well, Master Fensworth, I presume this is just the usual tour of inspection before your firm deposits my quarterly allowance?” he said, with as charming a smile as he could muster, and holding out his hand to for the old man to shake.

  “It is . . . although I could wish you would move to a more salubrious part of Battersea, if you are going to insist on living here,” the solicitor replied, with a touch of irritation and apprehension combined.

  “But the rents are ever so much cheaper here in the north,” Alexandre said ingenuously. “Not to mention the services of my man, and my char. Good solid locks on the doors and windows ensure no one can break in. And my man and I are perfectly capable of terrifying any miscreant who thinks to accost us. I should think you would applaud my frugality.”

  “I’m terrified of that blackguard,” he heard the old man mutter as he took a seat, but pretended not to have heard it. “Well, Alex, if I cannot persuade you, and since you do indeed seem perfectly capable of defending yourself and your property, I suppose I should applaud your frugality.”