The Sweet Far Thing

  “Miss Bradshaw. Will you come with me, please?”

  Head down, Ann follows her out, and I can’t imagine what sort of trouble she could be in.

  “At last,” Cecily says, gloating.

  “Cecily, what do you know?” Felicity asks.

  Cecily twirls in a pirouette. “Her cousins have arrived from the country to take her away. Brigid is upstairs now packing her case.”

  “But they can’t!” I cry as Felicity and I exchange horrified looks.

  “They decided it was time. High time, if you ask me.”

  “Well, we didn’t!” I snap.

  Cecily’s mouth opens in an outraged O just as Miss McCleethy makes her appearance, and I curse my timing. “Miss McCleethy, will you allow Miss Doyle to speak to me so appallingly?”

  Miss McCleethy levels her gaze at me. “Miss Doyle? Is an apology called for?”

  “Do forgive me, dear Cecily.” My smile is as false as a street vendor’s remedies.

  Cecily’s hands fly to her hips again. “Miss McCleethy!”

  I rush to Miss McCleethy’s side. “Is it true? Have Ann’s cousins come for her?”

  “Yes,” she answers.

  “But they can’t do that!” I protest. “She doesn’t want to go with them! She’s not meant to be a governess. She—”

  Something resembling true concern shows in Miss McCleethy’s hard face. “It was Miss Bradshaw herself who arranged for it.”

  It’s as if Miss McCleethy’s words are spoken underwater. I can scarcely make sense of them, and a cold dread tightens in my stomach.

  I run for the stairs and take them two at a time, Felicity calling my name and Miss McCleethy demanding order. When I reach our room, completely out of breath, Ann is sitting on her bed wearing her drab brown traveling suit and modest wool hat. She makes a neat pile of her halfpenny papers and the fashion magazine Felicity handed down. The program for Macbeth sits on top. Brigid tucks the last of Ann’s clothes into her suitcase.

  “Brigid,” I pant. “Could I have a moment with Ann?”

  “All righ’ then,” Brigid says, sniffling. “Close the case proper. And don’t forget your gloves, dearie.” Our housekeeper bustles past me, dabbing at her moist eyes with a handkerchief. It’s just Ann and me.

  “Tell me it’s a lie,” I say.

  Ann closes her case and sets it on the floor at her feet. “I left you the halfpenny papers. Something to remember me by.”

  “You can’t go with them. You’ve a position in Mr. Katz’s company waiting for you. The world’s stages!”

  Anguish shows on Ann’s face. “No. That was for Nan Washbrad, whose beauty speaks for itself, not Ann Bradshaw. The girl they want doesn’t exist. Not really.”

  I throw her case onto the bed, open it up, and start unpacking it. “Then we’ll find a way. We’ll make it work with the magic.”

  Ann puts her hand on mine, stopping me. “Don’t you see, Gemma? It would never work. Not forever. I can’t be who they want me to be.”

  “Then be someone else. Be yourself!”

  “Not good enough.” She twists her gloves in her hands, crumpling them into a ball and straightening them out again. “That’s why I sent the letter asking them to come for me.”

  I think back to the night of Ann’s audition and the letter in her hands, the one she had so much trouble posting. She never meant to go with Lily Trimble and Mr. Katz. I sink onto her bed; her case rests between us. She puts her things back in and latches it shut.

  “Tell me, then, what was all that trouble for?” I bite the words off.

  “I’m sorry, Gemma.” She tries to touch me but I shrink away. “If I leave now, I can remember that day as it was. I can always believe that I could have done it. But if I take that chance—if I go to them as myself and fail…I couldn’t bear it.”

  Felicity bursts through the door and blocks it. “Don’t you worry, Ann. I won’t let them take you.”

  Ann pulls on her gloves and grabs the handle of her case. “Step aside, please.”

  Fee opens her mouth in protest. “But—”

  “Let her go, Fee.” I want to kick Ann—for not trying. For giving up on herself and on us.

  Ann’s face falls into a well-trained mask that betrays no emotion. She might use that talent to thrill audiences from the world’s stages. Instead, she will use it to ease into the lives of her cousins so seamlessly that it will be as if she has never existed at all. And I see now that she might have made a good magician as well as an actress, for she knows how to make herself disappear.

  Suitcase in hand, Ann marches down the stairs for the last time. Her shoulders are straight and her back is stiff but her eyes are blank. She’s even begun to walk like a governess. Down the hall, I can hear the phonograph playing, McCleethy putting the girls through their careful paces.

  Mrs. Wharton waits at the bottom of the stairs with Mrs. Nightwing and Brigid. Mrs. Wharton wears a confection of a dress—beaded and feathered and overwrought. “Ah, here’s our Annie now. I was just telling Mrs. Nightwing how fond I know you’ll become of our house in the country. Mr. Wharton and I have named it Balmoral Spring, as Balmoral is so dear to Her Majesty.”

  “What a ridiculous name for a country house,” Felicity mutters. “Have they never spent a spring at Balmoral? It makes one long for English winters.”

  Mrs. Wharton chatters on about the nuisance of maintaining a country estate in the proper style and how her days are made a ruin by constantly keeping after the servants. Brigid gives Ann a handkerchief though she’s the one who could use one.

  “No shame in service,” she says, cupping Ann’s chin tenderly. “You remember your old Brigid.”

  “Goodbye, Ann,” Felicity says. “It won’t be the same without you.”

  Ann turns to me. I know she’s waiting for some hint of kindness—a kiss, an embrace, even a smile. But I can’t muster any of it.

  “You’ll make a fine governess.” My words are like a slap.

  “I know,” she answers, a slap of her own.

  The girls crowd the foyer. They sniffle and make a fuss as they never did while Ann was here and it might have mattered. I can’t bear it, so I slink off to the great hall and peek out from behind the drapes as Ann and her sudden admirers step outside.

  A footman secures Ann’s case and, after tending to Mrs. Wharton, he helps Ann into the carriage. She pokes her head out the window, holding fast to her one good hat. I could rush after her, give her a kiss on the cheek, send her off with a fond farewell. I could. It would mean the world to her. But I can’t make my feet move. Just say a proper goodbye, Gemma. That’s all.

  The reins are snapped. The horses kick up dust. The carriage jolts as it makes the turn around the drive and toward the road. It grows smaller and smaller till it’s nothing more than a dark speck moving away.

  “Goodbye,” I whisper at last, when it no longer matters and there is no one to hear it but the window.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  * * *

  ABSENCE IS A CURIOUS THING. WHEN FRIENDS ARE ABSENT, they seem to loom ever larger, till the lack of them is all one can feel. Now that Ann has left, the room is too big. Try as I might, I cannot fill the space that remains. I find I miss the snoring that pestered me so; I miss her gloomy character and silly, romantic notions and macabre fascinations. A half dozen times during the day, I think of some small observation I should like to share with her—an aside about Cecily or a complaint about the porridge that might make them both more bearable—only to realize that she isn’t here to enjoy it. There’s a moment of profound sadness that can be dispelled only by summoning my anger.

  She chose to leave, I remind myself as I put the needle to my embroidery, sing hymns, and practice my curtsy for the Queen. But if the fault is hers, why do I take it to heart? Why does her failure also feel like my own?

  I am glad when Miss McCleethy, acting as games mistress, calls us outdoors to play at sports. Several girls amuse the
mselves with lawn tennis. Some intrepid souls take up fencing, with Felicity leading the charge, a fierce gleam in her eye. A small group campaigns for cricket, “just like the boys’ schools!”, but as we have no bats or balls, it’s a moot point, and grumbling, they are forced to settle for croquet.

  I am for hockey. Running about the lawn, stick at the ready, cradling the ball down the field, passing it successfully to a teammate, shouting without restriction, all the while with the wind in my face and the sun on my back, is most invigorating. I should like a bit of hockey to clear my mind and sharpen my senses, to make me forget my loss. I find I should like to hit something with a stick.

  Miss McCleethy calls to us from the lawn without restraint. “That will never do! Your chum needs an assist, Miss Temple—look sharp! You must work together, ladies, toward a common goal! Remember: Grace, strength, beauty!”

  She may speak to the others, for I’ve done with assisting. I tried helping Ann, to no avail. When the ball is in play again, Cecily and I race for it at the same time. My blasted skirt tangles in my legs a bit—oh, what I wouldn’t do for the freedom of trousers just now—and Cecily gains the advantage. She may be closer but I don’t yield. I want it. More importantly, I don’t want her to have it, else she’ll be smug for a week.

  “I’m for it!” I call.

  “No, no—I have it!” she shouts.

  Our sticks lock, and she gives mine a smack with hers. One of our opponents, a thick girl with ginger hair, seizes the moment. She reaches between us and steals the ball, setting up a most brilliant play.

  “I told you I had it, Miss Doyle,” Cecily says with a tight smile.

  “Clearly, you didn’t,” I reply with a false smile of my own.

  “It was mine.”

  “You’re wrong!” I insist.

  Miss McCleethy strides onto the field and separates us. “Ladies! This is hardly a demonstration of proper sportsmanship. Enough, or I shall give you both poor conduct marks.”

  Glowering, I return to form. I should like to show Cecily—show them all—what I can do. No sooner have I thought it than the magic rears inside me with new force, and the ball is all I can see. I’m as bold as Richard the Lion-Hearted as I race down the field, outwitting my opponents. This time, the play will be mine.

  Cecily is quick, though. She’s nearly to the ball. “I have—”

  I run hard, knocking Cecily down. She sprawls on the grass and begins to wail. Miss McCleethy comes at a clip.

  “M-Miss M-McCleethy!” she blubbers. “She deliberately charged me!”

  “I did not!” I protest, but my red cheeks show the lie for what it is.

  “You did so!” Cecily wails.

  “You’re being babyish,” I say, putting the blame back on her shoulders.

  “All right, that’s enough. Miss Temple, part of sportsmanship is keeping a stiff upper lip.” Cecily’s mouth opens and I gloat. “And you, Miss Doyle, are far too hot, it seems. Cool your temper off the field, please.”

  “But I—”

  “Your recklessness might cause an even graver injury, Miss Doyle,” Miss McCleethy says, and I know she isn’t speaking solely of the game.

  My cheeks burn. The other girls snicker. “I am not reckless.”

  “I’ll have no further argument. Off the field until you have regained your composure.”

  Mortified and angry, I walk past the smirking schoolgirls and the chuckling workers and straight into the school, not caring that I’m demonstrating the most appalling lack of sportsmanship.

  Bloody McCleethy. If she knew what I know—that Eugenia Spence is alive in the Winterlands and trusts me and not her—she might not speak to me that way. Right, I’ve more important matters at hand. I crawl into Felicity’s tent, where I’ve left our copy of A History of Secret Societies, and, lounging on the settee in the great room, proceed to read it anew, hoping for some clue to the hiding place of the dagger. With a sigh, I resign myself to combing through it page by page, though 502 pages is so many to wade through, and I curse authors who write such lengthy books when a few neat pages of prose would do.

  First is a title page. Next is a poem. “The Rose of Battle,” by Mr. William Butler Yeats.

  “‘Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!’” I read aloud. “‘You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled / Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring / The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.’”

  It seems a fine poem, from what I can tell, as it doesn’t make my teeth ache, and I decide it shall be the poem I’ll recite at our masked ball.

  Opposite that page is one of the illustrations that grace the book. I must have glanced at it a half dozen times without really seeing it—a simple ink drawing of a room with a table and a single lantern, a painting of boats hanging on the wall. With growing excitement, I realize it is rather like the room I’ve seen in my visions. Could it be the same one? And if so, where is it? Here at Spence? And could this be where Wilhelmina Wyatt took the dagger? I run my fingers over the inscription beneath it: The Key Holds the Truth.

  Quickly, I flip through the pages, searching for other illustrations. I locate the tower again, and I wonder, could it be the East Wing as it once stood? Flip again, and there’s a drawing of a leering gargoyle above the inscription Guardians of the Night. Another drawing shows a merry magician, much like Dr. Van Ripple, placing an egg inside a box, and the next panel shows the egg vanished. It is entitled The Hidden Object.

  The drawings don’t correspond with the text, from what I can tell. It’s as if they exist as their own entity, a form of code. But for what? For whom?

  Miss McCleethy enters, fuming. “Miss Doyle, I’ll not tolerate such an appalling lack of discipline and sportsmanship. If you don’t care to play the game, you may sit on the field and cheer your schoolmates.”

  “They are not my mates,” I say, turning a page.

  “They might be, if you weren’t so desperately in love with being all alone in the world.”

  It’s a shame Miss McCleethy did not take up riflery, for she’s an excellent shot.

  “I tired of the game,” I lie.

  “No, you tired of the rules. That would seem to be a habit of yours.”

  I turn another page.

  Miss McCleethy steps forward. “What are you reading that is so captivating you feel it necessary to ignore me?”

  “A History of Secret Societies by Miss Wilhelmina Wyatt.” I glare at her. “Do you know it?”

  Her face drains of color. “No. I can’t say I do.”

  “And yet you purchased a copy from the Golden Dawn bookseller’s at Christmastime.”

  “Have you been spying on me, Miss Doyle?”

  “Why not? You spy on me.”

  “I look after you, Miss Doyle,” she says, correcting me, and I hate her for this lie most of all.

  “I know you knew Wilhelmina Wyatt,” I say.

  Miss McCleethy rips off her gloves and drops them onto a table. “Shall I tell you what I know of Wilhelmina Wyatt? She was a disgrace to the Order and to the memory of Eugenia Spence. She was a liar. A thief. A filthy addict. I tried to help her, and then”—she taps the book with her finger—“she wrote these lies to expose us—all for money. Anything for money. Did you know that she tried to blackmail us with the book so that we might abandon our plan to raise funds for the restoration of the East Wing?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because she was spiteful and without a shred of honor. And her book, Miss Doyle, is no more than twaddle. No, it’s more dangerous than that, for it contains perfidies, corruptions of truth written by a traitor and peddled to the highest bidder.”

  She closes the book with a loud crack and, snatching it from my grasp, marches straight for the kitchen. I run after her, catching up just as she opens the oven door.

  “What are you doing?” I say, aghast.

  “Giving it a proper burial.”

  “Wait—”

  Before I can stop her,
Miss McCleethy throws A History of Secret Societies into the oven and shuts the door. For a second, I’m tempted to tell her what I know—that I have seen Eugenia Spence, and that this book may save her—but Eugenia told me I should be careful, and for all I know, McCleethy is the one who cannot be trusted. I can only stand by whilst our best hope burns.

  “That cost us four shillings,” I croak.

  “Let that be a lesson to you to spend your money more wisely in the future.” Miss McCleethy sighs. “Really, Miss Doyle, you do try my patience.”

  I might tell her that is a common sentiment where I am concerned but it seems ill-advised. Something new pricks at me.

  “You said ‘was,’” I say, thinking.

  “What?”

  “You said Wilhemina was an addict and a liar, a traitor. Do you think she might be dead?” I say, testing.

  Miss McCleethy’s face pales. “I don’t know whether she lives or not, but I cannot imagine, given her state, that she’s still alive. Such a life takes a toll,” she says, seeming flustered. “In the future, if you wish to know about the Order, you need only ask me.”

  “So that you can tell me what you want me to hear?” I say, challenging her.

  “Miss Doyle, you only hear what you want to believe, whether it’s true or not. That has nothing whatsoever to do with me.” She rubs the sides of her head. “Now, go and join the others. You are dismissed.”

  I storm out of the kitchen, cursing Miss McCleethy under my breath. The girls pour in from the lawn. They’re flushed and smell a bit ripe, but they’re giddy with the excitement that running about in games of spirited rivalry brings. We rarely are allowed to give free rein to our competitive natures, though they live in us just as strongly as they do in men. Cecily turns her chin up at the sight of me. She and her clan give me withering looks, which, I suppose, they think the height of insult. I put my hand to my heart mockingly and gasp, and, freshly offended, they march off whispering about me anew.

  Upon seeing me, Felicity crouches like a master swordsman, cutting swoops into the air with her fencing foil. “Villain! You shall answer to the King for your treachery!”