The man burst out laughing and said something so quietly that Lucy couldn’t hear.
Lily Millington made a noise then, as if she had been hit and was winded, and Lucy was about to charge in to help when the door flew open and the man – Martin – swept past her, dragging Lily by the wrist behind him, muttering to her, ‘blue … America … new beginnings … ’
Lily Millington saw Lucy and shook her head, indicating that she should make herself scarce.
But Lucy refused. She followed them down the hallway, and when they reached the drawing room and the man saw her, he laughed and said, ‘Look out, here comes the cavalry. The little knight in shining armour.’
‘Lucy, please,’ said Lily Millington. ‘You must go.’
‘Best listen to her.’ The man grinned. ‘Little girls who don’t know when to leave have a habit of coming to sticky ends.’
‘Please, Lucy.’ There was a look of fear in Lily’s eyes.
But Lucy was overcome, suddenly, with all of the uncertainty of the past few days, the prevailing sense that she was too young to be of any use, that she didn’t belong, that decisions were made above and around her but never to include her; and now this man whom she did not know was trying to take Lily Millington away, and without understanding why, Lucy did not want that to happen; and she saw that this was her opportunity to put her foot down on a matter, any matter, that she cared about.
She glimpsed Thurston’s rifle lying on the chair where he’d left it after breakfast that morning, and in one fell swoop she seized it, held it by the barrel, and whacked it as forcefully as she could against the sneering head of the awful stranger.
His hand went to the side of his face in shock and Lucy struck him again and then kicked him hard in the shins.
He stumbled and then tripped over a table leg and fell to the ground. ‘Quick,’ said Lucy, pulse drumming in her ears, ‘he’ll be on his feet again soon. We have to hide.’
She took Lily Millington by the hand and led her halfway up the stairs. At the landing, she pushed aside the bentwood chair, and as Lily Millington watched, Lucy pressed the wooden rise to reveal the trapdoor. Even in that moment of fearful panic, Lucy managed to feel a jolt of pride at Lily Millington’s surprise. ‘Quick,’ she said again. ‘He’ll never find you in there.’
‘How did you—?’
‘Hurry.’
‘But you must come in, too. He is not kind, Lucy. He is not a good man. He will hurt you. Especially now that he’s been bested.’
‘There isn’t room, but there’s another one. I’ll hide there.’
‘Is it far?’
Lucy shook her head.
‘Then get inside it and don’t hop out. Do you hear me? No matter what happens, Lucy, stay hidden. Stay safe until Edward comes to find you.’
Lucy promised that she would and then sealed Lily Millington inside the chamber.
Without wasting another moment, aware that the man was clambering to his feet in the drawing room below, she ran to the top of the stairs and along the hallway, sliding back the panel and climbing in. She sealed the door behind her, enclosing herself within the dark.
Time passed differently in the hideaway. Lucy heard the man calling out for Lily Millington and she heard other noises, too, far away. But she wasn’t frightened. Her eyes had begun to adjust, and at some point Lucy had noticed that she wasn’t alone, and that it wasn’t truly dark at all; there were thousands of little lights, the size of pinpricks, twinkling at her from within the fibre of the wooden boards.
As she sat waiting, hugging her knees to her chest, Lucy felt strangely safe in her secret hiding place, and she wondered whether Edward’s fairy story might have had some truth to it after all.
X
I still hear his voice sometimes, that whisper in my ear. I still remember the smell of cheese and tobacco from his lunch. ‘Your father isn’t in America, Birdie. He never was. He was trampled by a horse the day you were supposed to sail. It was Jeremiah what brought you to us. Scooped you off the ground while you were sickly, left your dad for the poorhouse to bury, and brought you to my ma. Your lucky day, it was. Jeremiah’s lucky day, too, for he’s been on a very good wicket ever since. He said that you were a bright little thing and you’ve done very well for him, you have. You didn’t really think that he was sending all those spoils across the ocean, did you?’
He could not have winded me more surely had he driven his knee hard into my chest. And yet, I did not question what he told me. I did not doubt his claim, not even for a second, for I knew, as soon as he said it, that it was true. It was the only thing that made sense, and everything in my life to date was suddenly brought into sharper focus. Why else would my father fail to send for me? It had been eleven years since I had woken up in the room above the shop selling birds and cages, surrounded by Mrs Mack and the others. My father was dead. He had been dead all along.
Martin grabbed my wrist then and started pulling me towards the door of the Mulberry Room. He was whispering that it was going to be all right, that he would make it all right, that I wasn’t to be sad because he had an idea. We would take the Blue, he and I, and instead of delivering it back to London we would take it ourselves, the diamond and the tickets, too, and sail to America. It was the land of new beginnings, after all, just like it said in the letters that Jeremiah brought for me each month.
He meant, of course, the letters that Mrs Mack used to read out loud, the news from America, the news from my father, all of it made up. It was a breathtaking deception. But what moral platform did I have from which to beat my breast? I was a petty thief, a pretender, a woman who had taken on an assumed name without a blink of hesitation.
Why, I had deceived Mrs Mack little more than a fortnight ago, when I told her of my intention to go away with Edward to the country. Mrs Mack would never have let me go away willingly, not to Birchwood Manor for the summer and not on to America with Edward. Over the years, I had become her most reliable earner, and in my short life there was one thing I had learned for certain: people become used to riches quickly, and even if they’ve done nothing themselves to earn the wealth, once it’s been had, they consider it their due.
Mrs Mack believed that she was entitled to everything that I was and that I had, and so, in order that I might leave London with Edward, I told her it was all part of a scheme. I told her that within a month I would return with riches the likes of which they’d never seen.
‘What sort of riches?’ said Mrs Mack, never one for generalities.
And because the best deceptions always skirt the truth, I told them about Edward’s plans to paint me and his idea to include the priceless Radcliffe Blue.
It was dark in the chamber and very hard to breathe. It was eerily quiet.
I thought about Edward and wondered what was happening with Fanny down by the woods.
I thought about Pale Joe and the letter I had sent him from the village telling him that I was going to America; that he might not hear from me for some time but he was not to worry. And I thought about the photograph that I had enclosed for him ‘to remember me by’, the photograph that Edward had taken with Felix’s camera.
I thought of my father and the weight of his hand around mine, the supreme happiness I had felt when I was tiny and we set out together on our railway journeys to visit a broken clock.