‘It will make a noise. They’ll hear it on the stairs.’
Roses bloomed in Sarah’s cheeks. ‘There is something . . . something I can do at supper. I used to do it for Mrs Crabbly, when she was griping.’ Elsie stared at her. ‘A little drop into the drinks, to make them sleep heavily.’
Elsie had the feeling she had misjudged Sarah all along. ‘Did you really? Did you really drug Mrs Crabbly just to get some peace?’
A roguish grin spread over Sarah’s face. ‘We have all done things we are a little ashamed of, Mrs Bainbridge.’
Night fell swiftly. All afternoon rain pattered against the windows. Each time Elsie awoke from a doze, the clouds had grown a little darker. She closed her eyes to a gunpowder sky, and opened them to find it had deepened to tar black. It was time.
Elsie staggered out of bed before she had the chance to fall back asleep. With great difficulty, she tied on the cloak Sarah had left out for her and put a fresh box of matches in the pocket. A laudanum haze filled her vision. Every muscle protested at her folly. How would she even make it down the stairs?
The stick was too fragile, trembling under her weight as she limped to the door. If the companions came, she would not be able to run.
But what choice did she have?
Two soft thuds on the door. Elsie’s head jerked up.
‘Come in,’ she whispered.
The door opened silently and Sarah slid in, bringing with her an aura of golden light. She carried an oil lantern in each hand.
‘Here.’ Shadows cavorted across her face as she handed a lantern to Elsie. Her pupils reflected the light.
‘Are they both asleep?’
‘There was a small problem,’ Sarah said. ‘Mr Livingstone went to the library. I’m afraid he’s drifted off in there. He will have a stiff neck when he wakes.’
Worry bunched in her chest. Now it came down to it, she was weak. She did not want to leave him behind. ‘Sarah . . . Perhaps we should wait. We need to plan it out. Where will we go, what will we do?’
Sarah stared at her. ‘There is no time. We have enough money between us to get on a train.’
‘But . . . I can’t just abandon Jolyon. What if the companions go after him? What if they use him as their host?’
‘Will you be able to stop them, if you are here?’
‘No . . . But—’
‘Will you be able to protect him from inside an asylum?’
Elsie closed her eyes. There was no way to win. Whatever choice she made, she lost Jolyon. And what was her life, then?
‘I can’t . . .’
‘You are not betraying him, Elsie. It is he who has given up on you.’
Reluctantly, she nodded. Better to take her chances with Sarah than spend a lifetime trapped behind high walls. She would not let someone force her, not ever again.
Sarah led the way. Elsie limped after her. Everything was in gloom. Not even the gas lights burnt.
All she could hear were Sarah’s footsteps and the steady tap, tap of her stick. The lantern in her hand bounced to her uneven gait, illuminating flashes of maroon carpet.
Suddenly, Sarah froze. Elsie could not stop in time. There was a thud and the sound of glass breaking, oil spilling. Shadows flooded in as the corridor grew a shade darker. Sarah had dropped her lantern.
‘Quick.’ She jerked round and snatched the remaining light from Elsie. The moment she held it aloft, they gasped.
Seven companions skulked beside the stairs.
It was too dark to make out their faces. Only silhouettes loomed, large against the wall as the lantern trembled in Sarah’s hand. Elsie cast a glance over her shoulder, remembering how they had come before, from both sides, like a pack of wolves. She could see nothing solid, only a trickle of yellow running down from the ceiling at the end of the corridor.
‘Sarah, what—’ Before she finished, she heard Jolyon’s snore. Confused images slotted together and then she realised: the yellow stripe was a lamp burning in the library. The library door was open. She clutched at Sarah’s gown. ‘He’s in there all alone. I can’t leave him, not with them out here.’
Sarah’s eyes were fixed on the companions. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Jolyon!’
‘But you being in the house won’t stop them!’
Her bad leg started to shake. ‘He’s left the door open.’
‘What difference does it make?’
She was right. There was logic, but then there was also the heart: the heart of a woman who had raised a boy alone from when he was five years of age. Elsie couldn’t leave him. At the very least, she had to shut the door.
‘Keep watching them,’ she cried, and pivoted on her stick. Thinking only of Jolyon, she plunged back into the corridor.
Her stick tapped in time to her frantic pulse. She heard Sarah’s shout of alarm, but already it sounded far away. She was drowning in darkness. Her eyes flew about, seeking relief from unrelenting black. Jolyon. Just concentrate on Jolyon. Despite the pain scalding her ribs, despite the numb weakness of her left leg, she pressed on towards the crack of light.
She thought she would drop. Pain, fear and laudanum engulfed her. Only the unnatural chill rolling out of the library and the dank, mouldy smell cut through the haze. She stumbled gasping across the threshold. Jolyon sat slumped at the desk in the alcove, his head resting on the polished surface.
Hobbling closer, she saw the movement of his eyes beneath their lids and the slow thump of a pulse in his neck. Alive. He was just sleeping. His breath fluttered the paper beneath his cheek.
It was only by chance that she noticed the letterhead. She was on the point of turning away, but her eye caught at the script, printed like a scream.
St Joseph’s Hospital for the Insane
For a moment everything fell still. Then her heart kicked back in, drumming blood into her head with painful beats. She stumbled from the room.
That one word ricocheted around her skull: insane.
She could not doubt Sarah any longer. Jolyon really did think she was mad. He had given her up. The pain of that was worse than the cracked ribs. Slamming the door shut, she turned and fought her way through the darkness, back along the corridor.
‘Please, Elsie!’ Sarah’s strangled voice led her forward. ‘Are you there? I can’t stare at these things any longer.’
‘Have they moved?’
‘Only their eyes. They were watching you.’
Elsie shivered.
If only she could see clearly. She could not relight the broken lantern, for the oil had soaked into the carpet. Dare she fire up a wall lamp? Surely the light of just one would not wake Jolyon?
With her free hand, she pulled on the lever.
‘Here, Sarah, take my matches. I’ll hold the lantern while you light the gas.’
Sarah obeyed and the flame leapt into life. Light splashed on the red flock wallpaper, the marble busts. ‘Oh my. They look a little closer.’
‘We cannot stop watching them,’ Elsie told her. ‘I’ll go down the stairs first with the lantern, to watch out for any in the Great Hall. You walk backwards and keep an eye on these ones.’