Nettleblack, page 19
Septimus glanced at my expression as I cut myself a portion, her navy eyes slackening to the widest I’d seen them. “I – right – look – you ain’t skipping any more meals!”
“Quite,” I managed vaguely. It was all I could do not to simply inhale bread, cheese, apricots and crockery on the spot.
The dormitory was dark, the curtains tacked up. The beds were unoccupied, and my solitary taper burned low – but slowly enough, mercifully, for me to eat my tea by. Beyond Mordred, shinnying up my bedframe to steal an edge from the cheese, it was just me. Just me – for Septimus left, almost as soon as I’d entered, flung me an awkward little nod and vanished back to her brother.
Addendum – which I can only hope emerges vaguely legible, given that it’s currently chiming four in the morning and I don’t dare sneak next-door for another light to scribble by – in the few paltry hours I’ve been asleep, I’ve done nothing but dream every inch of that encounter in the stairwell. Quite how I shall face her tomorrow, I’ve not the conceivable faintest.
Did I want her to kiss me?
Can I want such a thing?
Figs! Get back to sleep!
Correspondence (from the past)
30th October 1889
Mr. Tickering – Lorrie,
You were right to suppose me nervous at our last meeting. My sisters arrive in a week. I have not seen them in an appallingly long time. They have been reluctant to visit me here, and I certainly have not had the licence to disappear to Wales. But perhaps the delay is for the best. I would not wish to subject them to the demands of society for longer than necessary – though I have no doubt they will both find those demands far easier to navigate than I. Rosamond was certainly an alarmingly popular child.
To practical matters: the pair of them will require new clothes. Whatever they wore to frolic on the beaches of Gower will be entirely inappropriate here. I will send their measurements, and I would appreciate you making enquiries (surreptitiously) with Property Cravats for accessories and decorations.
I hope your music is still proving suitably entertaining.
*
14th Nov, 1889
So much!!! Sept and I are saving for a piano now. We’ll be able to afford it in about a thousand years – maybe. But still.
Hope your sisters’ arrival is alright? I’ll have a sneaky chat with Property. (Also – does this mean we should change the timing of our afternoon tea?)
*
2nd December 1889
I am profoundly sorry it has taken so long for me to reply. I do not know to whom to confess this – no, I do know, and it is certainly you – and I can only hope you will not think me beyond the pale for it –
I do not think I like my sisters.
No. That is not what I mean. I care for them greatly, and I will do everything to ensure their happiness – but I do not like to have them in the house. I do not like what they have made of my quiet. And I am afraid that they think the same of me – that I do not even possess the capacity to make them happy.
Let me explain.
The elder – Rosamond – has done nothing but despair since she arrived. I do not understand why she should launch into a tantrum at my recommendation that she not go walking out in a pair of our father’s trousers. She was a child when he died; perhaps she cannot remember him wearing them. She sits in the garden and sobs, and when I attempt to reason with her she will snarl her replies only in Welsh, which our mother always forbade under an English roof. I have given her the attic, with its pleasant country views, but I do not think she deems it enough, and I do not know what else to do. I cannot let her simply go back to Wales – not before she is married!
The youngest is another matter. I thought her name Henrietta and addressed her as such – Rosamond calls her Henry – it transpires she is actually Harriet, but she has not corrected me. I certainly cannot admit to being such an unforgivable sibling: what will be thought of me if it is learnt that I slipped on my sister’s name? But the girl is a mystery. She follows Rosamond about the house like a forlorn spaniel, and cringes away from my every attempt to instigate a conversation.
I must bring them both into society slowly. They evidently require more time to adjust than I imagined. But I am sure they will do well when they are ready.
I want you to come sooner, but I must let them settle first. Might we resume our tea-meetings in the New Year?
*
17th Feb, 1890
I’ll say it again – stop worrying. Have you had that chat with Rosamond about the trousers? I can always make her some new ones. Sept wears trousers all the time now.
You were asking about Sept – as to an answer, I’m not sure. She doesn’t know anything about you. I was thinking – maybe I could tell her you exist but not say who you are – if that makes sense? You can absolutely trust her – as much as you can trust me.
*
3rd March 1890
Now that my sisters are poised to enter society, I do not think it wise to name me in your disclosure to your sister, but otherwise your suggestion sounds appropriate. It is only certain individuals from whom we have anything to hide, after all. And I am glad that you have a sibling of whom you are fond, and who is fond of you in return.
I am trying to do as you suggest, and give my sisters the benefit of the doubt, but I confess I had strong words with Rosamond last night. She has apparently spent the last few years teaching her younger sister to shoot – which, admittedly, will prove useful for endearing her to the Miltonwaters set – but she has taught her so little of anything else! Henrietta cannot sew, or play an instrument, or manage a household, and she is proving even worse than I at holding a conversation. Yet she does not begrudge Rosamond for her carelessness – she seeks out her company far more readily than mine. I cannot always translate what is being said: they both speak Welsh with terrifying ease. I am not sure, moreover, that the conversations are always congenial to the purpose. Rosamond has made no secret of her dissatisfaction with the present situation, and if she does nothing but poison Henrietta with it –
I will remedy the latter. I have a mind to send Henrietta to Girton College. She might form her own circle of important friends there, and it will get her away from Rosamond’s influence. As for Rosamond – in one respect, at least, I can report an improvement. She seems to have forged a friendship of her own. My friends must not discover it – it is with the proprietor of the cravat-shop – but, as far as I can tell, they have managed to galvanise Rosamond from the worst of her pining. Anything that settles her here is all to the good.
Would you come next week?
*
15th April, 1890
Do you want to come here instead? Sept’s out in the days – would that be easier? I don’t think we can sneak round your sisters forever – they know I exist – even if they never see me, I still send all their outfits – and sooner or later at least one of them’s bound to crash in on tea.
In haste – and in hope you’re alright –
L.
9.
OF DIVISIONARY
CONSTERNATION
The Director’s Record
October 31st 1893 (Tuesday)
SEVERED HEAD. –– Urgent. The most important piece of evidence yet to be housed in the Dallyangle Division has disappeared. Last recorded sighting in the morgue on eve of Monday 30th. Cassandra is currently searching the town. All Divisioners to be involved in the recovery – but not to be sent out simultaneously, or in any quantity that might cause alarm.
Mem. – We have witness testimony claiming Lawrence Tickering was in charge of the chest prior to and during the head’s appearance. Obviously, this must be handled carefully.
DIVISION SERGEANT SEPTIMUS. –– Altercation this morning between the aforementioned and Pip Property. Ensure Septimus is not left alone with Property in future. The Division Sergeant must not be permitted to squander her former potential on unhelpful squabbles.
MISS HYSSOP. –– As discovered today, our newest recruit possesses the ability to transcribe spoken testimony with perfect accuracy and unprecedented speed. I never encountered such a trick at Bedford – is it something they teach at Girton? Her penmanship still leaves much to be desired, and Cassandra would only sulk if I were to transfer any of her writing-work to a newcomer, but – well, it is certainly worth bearing in mind.
ASSAULTS. –– I had hoped not to have to document this kind of setback. But – somehow – news of the missing head is already circulating, and the consequences are being felt. Millicent Musgrove and Oliver Skull were harangued by the public in Market Square, and Septimus (off duty at the time) was struck across the face in the same quarrel. All three are recovered and resuming full service tomorrow, but – all the same. Septimus reports angry demands for the New Police.
I shan’t let it come to this. We will find that head, and we will meet the council’s ultimatum, and public ill-feeling will dissipate. It has to.
Keturah St. Clare Ballestas, Director of the Dallyangle Division
My less-than-triumphant return
Wednesday, November 1st, 1893? – or something to the gist
I ought to be glad of today’s working arrangements. My duties – for the first time since my arrival – have allowed me a chance to document the day (at least, the first half of it) during the day, as opposed to my usual candle-gobbling scribble. But where it may yet allow me a decent night’s sleep – figs, that’s it! That’s quite the only silver lining! It’s just notched past midday, and in every other respect – well –
Plums. Well.
I gave in last night, and slept in my uniform. The wretched rag of my chemise was halfway to paper, and the temperature had tumbled in October’s wake, and – the Division was already a bastion of eccentricity! Gertie Skull laughed outright to see me curled up in full-buttoned jacket, when the raw morning tapers betrayed my shivering state. She was sleeping in her cardigan, which I’d not seen her remove for at least a day – though it would quite be the pot calling the nettle black for me to disapprove. One look at my hair – there were still bits of towpath and willow contained therein – sent her swinging under the bed for her ablutions jug, thrusting it and the bowl at me with a meaningful eyebrow. I flushed to my ears as I slopped the worst of the dirt off, and she watched me amusedly: “Christ, Hyssop, you look like a bloody hedge!”
Septimus was waiting for me at the desk, picking at the burgundy fabric of her cuffs. The reception-room was quite as freezing as the dormitory, for once. Not a soul had lit the wood-burner, and the cold slunk in through the swinging doors, as Millicent and Oliver shivered past into the grey outside.
But it wasn’t just the doors. One of the windowpanes had been smashed, shards of glass kicked into the corner, the jagged hole gasping in cold twinges of breeze.
There wasn’t any sign of Cassandra. I was a veritable tangle of heaven knows what: relief, to get Septimus alone – and wanton fear, of what she might think of me, of what Lorrie might have said to her – and unease, to think that the entire exchange was happening in a room with a broken window – with a window that must have been broken, deliberately, in the vicious blur of last night. But she was pointedly ignoring the shattered glass, and I quite didn’t feel I could mention it.
“Henry.” She glanced me over, arched an eyebrow. “You look a wreck.”
It wasn’t so horribly picturesque as a bloody hedge, but it stung thrice-over. And this was purely based on my matted hair, the cuts and bruises splattering my face and hands, the stubborn smudges of mud on my jacket and skirt. How much more she might have said, had she known of the torn-up stockings, the emaciated chemise, the ongoing lack of corset!
I was entirely crimson, and entirely wrong-footed with regards to a response. Was I to admit, finally, that I’d no access to ready money? Was I to – as if I wanted her to know! – confess what I’d done the previous night, with the bicycle and the towpath and the interminable tumbles?
“But it ain’t your fault,” she added quickly, catching my horror. “You’d a mort of criminals at your back, and you took a nasty fall in Lorrie’s hallway – ”
(And you did too, because I knocked you over!)
“ – so! I’ve got a plan. You’re going to be staying at the desk today. Give you a chance to recover – away from the worst of the public. If you’re learning about the Div, you might as well try the boring side. There won’t be much going on in reception, but you can sit, and there’s the fire, and – ” – bewilderingly, she flushed – “ – and I thought that’d be nice for you.”
I gaped at her. Did she want rid of me? Was she so repulsed by the hedge-haired wreck before her that she would rather I stay here – with Cassandra, who thoroughly despised her, and wouldn’t skimp to tell me as much – instead of accompanying her? And she was still banned from the bicycle-shed – which left her, what? Sallying on foot into the same throng that gave her the yellowing bruise? Dodging the town’s disapproval? Facing down the Sweetings? Snatching a precarious chat with Lorrie, and a cheery flirtation with Nick Fitzdegu?
All of which she’d done, for as long as she’d worked here, before I turned up to spoil everything.
“But – but – I – erm – are you sure – you – you won’t be – ?”
“I’d rather be alone.”
I was ready to collapse into exhausted sobs – and stunned, I confess, by the viscerality of my reaction – until she heard herself, and her eyes widened, and a bristle of explanation jolted up her throat.
“That is – well – I – it ain’t that I’d always rather be alone – just that, sometimes, I need it. It ain’t a reflection on you. You’ve been making progress, you have, and you can make even more when you’re back out tomorrow. Yes! But today, you need to rest! Clear?”
I forced a breath. She doesn’t mean it as an estimation of your worth to her, she’s entirely said as much.
“Clear – yes – quite – ”
“Good.” She flashed me one of her swift sharp smiles – figs! “You’ll need a day to calm down, if we’re trying you on the cycle soon.”
“Oh – erm – of course – ”
“About that.” Her teeth dashed over her lip, tracing the shape of the smile. “Lorrie did mention what you were up to last night. With the cycling. And that.”
Persimmons.
Words of sheer insanity sprang out before I could bite down on them.
“I – but – it was supposed to be a surprise!”
Now she stared, a stark ring of white round each navy eye. My every fidgety theory from the previous night darted about her expression. Had I been right? Had she never had a pleasant surprise prior to this (albeit profoundly botched) attempt? Or perhaps such an assumption was wildly off-key. Perhaps there had been surprises, and each of them had been ghastly, and the last thing she ever wanted was another round of tactless wretches crashing bicycles in her name –
“Right,” she managed, collar twitching as she swallowed. “I see. I – yes. Well. Good. I mean – idea. Good idea. The cycling. But you don’t have to – I mean – I’m glad you did – but – ”
She cleared her throat. “But with all that’s happened, safest you don’t go off on your own to do it. We’ll get the cycles back soon enough – I’m working on it. I’ll teach you then. Alright?”
Peaches – what?
But I’d – the whole affair had been a disaster – and – yet here I was, struck slack-jawed in front of a hopeful modulation –
“I – yes – alright,” I stammered, words taut as a string of stitches. “Yes!”
She nodded. “That’s a job for later, then. Right! Today! I’m off, but first – here’s breakfast, if you’ve a mind to eat. No – I insist you eat. Here!”
She flung a hand out, and a marvellous scent swirled up to grasp hold of me. Fresh-wrapped in crisp market packaging, she’d managed to obtain a bacon roll – a warm bacon roll, seeping its warmth through my fingers. I lifted a fingertip from the paper, and the sheen of melted butter glistened on my skin.
Quite abruptly, I wanted to sob again.
“Right!” she declared. “Yes! Eat, and I’ll see you later!”
I managed an astonished smile, and then she was gone, striding out through the double doors into a sullen rainy morning.
The doors had barely swung once before Cassandra appeared in them, too bleary-eyed and scarf-muffled to notice Septimus departing, a brace of logs jostling under one arm. Quite of an instinct, I whipped the bacon roll behind my back. If Cassandra guessed that her rival had obtained it for me, there would doubtless be sardonical consequences.
But she didn’t seem of a mood to notice. I could have pranced across the room twirling the roll atop my head (in a hypothetical world in which I possessed the capacity to express unfettered exuberance), and she still might not have noticed. There were weary shadows bruising her brown skin, smudging her freckles and hollowing her eyes. When she eventually spotted me – after she’d all but staggered into me – that tired stare shot wide with suspicion.
“Why are you still here? I don’t care what Javert thinks – no one said you could filch my job!”
I swallowed. “I – erm – I’m supposed to be helping – at the desk – ”
“Helping?”
She scoured her eyes with the fingers on her free hand, where they showed inkstained and nail-bitten above her fingerless gloves. “Like you did yesterday? When you sprint-scribbled like a demon just to show me up?”
“I – that wasn’t – no! I – I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to – I – ”
She was still glowering. Persimmons, what would mollify her?
“I don’t have to – to write anything more – I don’t think the Director would want me to – after she saw my handwriting – ”
