‘No, Miss Radcliffe.’
‘Well, then, off you go, and I will consider not mentioning this infraction to Miss Thornfield for her detention list.’
Ada heard their footsteps scuttle away and allowed herself a small sigh of satisfied relief.
‘Out you climb then, child,’ said Miss Radcliffe, rapping gently on the wall. ‘You must have a class you’re missing, too.’
Ada slipped her fingers into the hidden latch and unhooked the panel, cracking the door open. Miss Radcliffe had already disappeared, nowhere to be seen, and Ada climbed quickly from the hiding place, marvelling once again at how seamlessly the wall panel slid back into place. Unless one knew that it was there, it would be impossible to guess.
Miss Radcliffe had been the one to show her the secret chamber. She had caught Ada hiding behind the thick brocade curtains in the library one afternoon when she should have been in a sewing lesson and bade her come to the office where they would have ‘a little talk’. Ada had prepared herself for a dressing down, but instead Miss Radcliffe had told her to sit wherever she pleased and said, ‘I was not much older than you are now when I first came to this house. My brother and his friends were adults and far too busy with other things to be interested in me. I was given a free run, as they say, and being of a somewhat’ – she hesitated – ‘inquisitive disposition, I engaged in rather more exploration than might have been expected.’
The house was very old, she’d continued, hundreds of years old, and had been built at a time in history when certain people had very good reason to seek concealment. She had invited Ada then to follow her, and while all of the other girls were singing Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ downstairs, Miss Radcliffe had revealed to Ada the secret hideaway. ‘I am not sure about you, Miss Lovegrove,’ she’d said, ‘but there have been times in my life when I have felt a very keen need to disappear.’
Now Ada hurried along the passage to the central stairwell. Rather than heading downstairs to the music appreciation class, though, she went all the way up to the attic and into the bedroom labelled ‘East Loft’ that she shared with another boarder, Margaret Worthington.
She didn’t have much time; music appreciation class would soon be over and the other girls would be released. Ada knelt on the floor, tossing back the linen valance that was draped around her bed. Her suitcase was still there, exactly where she’d left it, and she slid it out carefully.
Ada lifted the lid and the tiny bundle of fur blinked at her, opening his mouth in a silent, emphatic meow!
She cupped the kitten in one hand and drew him into a close cuddle. ‘There, now, little one,’ she whispered against the soft spot between his ears. ‘Don’t worry, I’m here.’
The kitten pawed at her dress with his velvet pads and launched into an indignant tale of hunger and need; Ada smiled and dug inside the deep pocket of the pinafore that Mamma had chosen for her at Harrods, retrieving the jar of sardines she’d pilfered earlier from the kitchen.
While her kitten stretched his legs, stalking the room’s rim as if it were a wide savannah plain, Ada prised the lid off the jar and withdrew a single slippery fish. Holding it out, she called, softly, ‘Here, Bilī; here, little cat.’
Bilī padded towards her, demolishing the dangled sardine, and each one thereafter, until the jar was empty; he then meowed plaintively until Ada set the jar down on its side and let him lick the juice delicately from within. ‘Greedy little fellow,’ she said, with deepest admiration. ‘You’ve gone and got your snout thoroughly wet.’
A week ago, Ada had saved Bilī’s life. She had been avoiding Charlotte and May and had found herself on the far side of the meadow, beyond the house where the river bend turned around the copse and disappeared from sight.
Ada had heard noises coming from the other side of the trees that reminded her of festival time in Bombay and had followed the river westward until she turned a corner and saw a Gypsy camp in the clearing beyond. There were caravans and fires, horses and dogs, and children throwing a floating kite with a long tail of colourful ribbons into the air.
She had noticed one scruffy boy heading towards the river on his own. He had a sack over his shoulder and was whistling a song that she almost recognised. Curious, Ada had followed him. She crouched behind a tree and watched as he started taking things from the sack, one by one, and dunking them in the river. She had thought at first that he was cleaning small items of clothing, just as she had seen people doing in Dhobi Ghat back home. It was only when she heard the first tiny cry that she realised it wasn’t clothing he was drawing from the sack, and that he wasn’t cleaning anything.
‘Hey! You! What do you think you’re doing?’ she had called, pounding over to his side.
The boy looked up at her, his shock as clear as the dirt on his face.
Ada’s voice was quivering. ‘I said, what do you think you’re doing?’
‘Putting them out of their misery. Like I been told to.’
‘You awful, cruel boy! You beastly coward! You great big thug!’
The boy raised his eyebrows and Ada was galled to realise that he looked amused by the force of her rage. Without a word, he reached into the sack and scooped out the last remaining kitten, holding it aloft by the scruff of its neck with the most indelicate grip.
‘Murderer!’ she hissed.
‘My dad’ll murder me if I don’t do what he says.’
‘Give me that little cat at once.’
The boy had shrugged and then thrust the limp kitten into Ada’s waiting hands before tossing the empty sack over his shoulder and slinking back towards camp.
Ada had thought a lot about Bilī’s brothers and sisters since that day. She woke sometimes in the middle of the night, unable to rid her mind of pictures of their submerged faces and lifeless bodies, tossed and tumbled by the river’s current as it carried them out to sea.
Now, Bilī let out a squawk of displeasure as Ada hugged him just a bit too hard.
There was a noise outside on the staircase, footfalls, and Ada fumbled the kitten quickly back into the suitcase, dropping the lid but making sure to leave a crack around the rim for air. It was not an ideal solution but it would do for now. Miss Thornfield, predictably enough, did not tolerate pets.
The door opened just as Ada had climbed to her feet. The valance, she noticed, was still hooked up near her mattress, but there was no time to fix it.
Charlotte Rogers was standing in the doorway.
She smiled at Ada, but Ada knew better than to smile back. She remained en garde.
‘There you are,’ said Charlotte sweetly. ‘Haven’t you been a slippery little fish today!’ For a split second, aware of the empty sardine jar in her pocket, Ada thought that Charlotte Rogers had somehow guessed her secret. But the older girl continued: ‘I’m just here to deliver a message – the bearer of bad tidings, I’m afraid. Miss Thornfield knows that you skipped music class and she has asked me to send you to her to receive your punishment.’ She smiled with mock sympathy. ‘You would get on so much better here if you just learned to follow the rules, Ada. Rule number one is that I always win.’ She turned to leave, hesitated, and then looked back. ‘Better straighten your bed. I wouldn’t like to have to tell Miss Thornfield that you’ve been slovenly.’