Nettleblack, page 52
Sleep as late as you want, the note scrawls. I’ve just gone out to get your brother. And Tom Ballestas, if the apothecary can spare him, to make sure your nose doesn’t need setting or anything. Back soon. Everything being taken care of at the Div. Worry not! – Nick.
I’m in two minds. I want Lorrie – I want him safe with me, safe from Lady Miltonwaters – but seeing me like this’ll fling him right into a state. Especially if –
But when I lift my hands to my face, they come away clean, but for a few skeins of my unpinned hair. That’s something. Even if the bruises and swelling won’t’ve gone, and I still can’t breathe through my nose – ’least the blood’s been got rid of. Don’t want to worry him too much.
It’s only then, as I set the note back down on the table, that I spot it. There’s something tangled up with the blanket on my knees, a corner of dark leather poking out from the garish tartan. It sits startlingly familiar in my hand when I ease it free of the blanket’s folds – and I know it straightaway.
It’s Henry’s journal.
I tip it against my palm, and it slumps open to a bookmark, right at the front. There’s another sheet of that creamy paper – but this time the writing matches Henry’s, wild and spidery.
I can lift it right to my face, squint without fretting about interruption. Trace my finger along the words, for all the world like I’m learning my letters again, guess the shapes and scribbles ’til I can set ’em to a pattern. I am not coherent, she’s written above a shaky signature, but this is. And in the journal itself, at the top of the page she’s marked with the paper – that’s a date, back in October – and a first line. To be blunt: I must escape.
It’s her explanation. Not to be rushed or stammered. She’s left me alone with it, with all the space and silence I need to take it in.
Whatever it is – whatever it means for us – she wants me to know.
So I curl up my legs again, settle back against the chaise, and start reading.
29.
IN WHICH SOME NEW
DECISIONS ARE MADE
Myself
A date, most likely Sunday, November 5th, 1893
Figs. I now have a whole phase of my flummeried existence to sum up, and I’m quite not even sure how to start.
“‘I wish to make an announcement,’” the Director declared. Her voice cracked on the last word, and she cleared her throat, lifting the ledger an inch closer to her spectacles. “‘The past few weeks have been, to you, a test of the Division’s abilities – to provide you with the security and protection which is your right – and you have been’ – Cassandra, what does this word say?”
Cassandra plucked her elbows off the reception desk, wove around it to peer over her shoulder, one hand crooked on the back of the Director’s office-chair. “‘Sceptical’.”
Her mother nodded. The glance between them was tentative – a hesitant smile from the Director, a shaky dip of the head from her daughter. I had said nothing to either of everything I heard last night, when Lady Miltonwaters and Adelaide finally stormed out through the double doors, and I could emerge from the dormitory with transcript in hand, seal off the end of it with some taper-wax and the signet. It had seemed prudent to offer them only my briefest reassurance, a cursory glance over their adversaries’ most incriminating speeches – and then hastily take my leave. They did much the same, hastening towards the apothecary with Johannes on the Director’s lips, and Cassandra staggering in her wake.
Now, we sat in the midst of a peace soft and fragile as an unfinished scarf, still stuck on the end of a knitting-needle. Cassandra had spent the morning in her mother’s office. I had heard their voices rising, crashing, tumbling down again, fast frantic talk of a leave of absence and time to consider. It was only as three o’clock chimed that the pair of them emerged – with the Director’s badge pinned in place, and a new-written project in Cassandra’s ledger. Even then – even to Gertie and Millicent and Oliver, who had spent the morning resoundingly occupied by other matters – even to Mr. Adelstein, hovering nervously beside the double doors – it was obvious that their conversation had not been smooth, and the joint work in the ledger not entirely placating. But the pair seemed consummately determined to make an effort, to squash things down until their collaboration had run its course. Cassandra had stuck her head round the dormitory door, summoning Gertie and her contingent from their doze on the beds, and I had defied my skirts to cycle across town in search of Mr. Adelstein. Now, the whole Division had gathered in reception – and our opinions were demanded, on the speech just drafted by the Ballestases.
All but Septimus.
Of course I was nervous. Mr. Adelstein, of all people, had proffered me stiff assurances quoted verbatim from Nick: she had rested well, and she would be along when she could, but Mr. Ballestas and Lorrie had to see to her nose first. I was quite amazed that I had energy left to panic. I had barely slept, had simply commandeered an Adelstein desk and scribbled entry after entry until my hands stopped shaking, until there was nothing more to do than leave the journal with Septimus and concede to Nick’s attic-bed. She could be reading it now, even as I twitched on the reception bench, the very same bench I had sprawled across the night we first met.
But she had to know. And I wanted her to know properly, in words that wouldn’t mangle my feelings to nothing as they struggled out of my throat. And I quite refused to think of it any more than that – for the moment, anyway. The journal – my past, and any potential future she might wish for with me in it – everything was in her hands, and I could do nothing more.
And I was, apparently, the only member of the Division even slightly faltering in careful attendance to the speech. Gertie, Millicent and Oliver filled the bench beside me – the latter with his skinny knees drawn up to his chin, the former gulping down a mug of steaming tea. Cassandra, until her movement, had been sat at the desk, having stuffed the wood-burner almost to bursting. Mr. Adelstein perched at the doors, trying his best to resemble anything other than a prodigal in disgrace, nodding along to every word with pointed attentiveness. The burner’s heat seeped out from behind the desk, clasping tight about the heavy velvets and rich layers I hadn’t yet taken off. The stares, from Gertie and her contingent, when I first trembled down beside them in full Heiress Nettleblack attire, had been far too much for me to acknowledge.
Now, Gertie lifted a hand. “D’you reckon it’s fair to tell the council they’ve been sceptical about us? I mean – given they’re the ones paying for us to exist? Sorry, I – I mean, it’s a great opening, obviously – I just thought –”
“No, you’re quite right,” the Director returned quickly, levelling an encouraging smile in the bench’s direction. Gertie pinked, quite as startled as she was delighted. “This draft is open to suggestions from every Division member. As a Division, we are best when we shoulder the work together – we must try to remember that going forward, myself included. So – Cassandra?”
Cassandra plucked a pencil from behind her ear, twisted it in her fingers. Her voice was studiously measured, carefully devoid of any emotion, pinned in its entirety to the question at hand. “You could say ‘you might feel you had reason to doubt us’, or something like that. Leave it up to them if they want to agree.”
“Very good.” The Director proffered the ledger to her, waited with a few careful glances as Cassandra scrawled the edit into the margin. “We do not wish to alienate the council mere seconds into the address, after all. Shall I go on?”
The gaslight shook with nods. Outside, the dusk was thickening, the daylight hours almost pinched away. Not that – persimmons, not that it ought to have plucked at my fears like it did. Septimus’s treatment would take as long as it took. There was quite no point pinning any expectations to the time of day.
“‘The Metropolitan Police may have years to pursue cases,’” the Director continued, settling back into her chair. She had carried it out of her office – and, cherries, it was peculiar in the extreme to see her folded down into it, no longer the tallest person in any given room. “‘To lose their criminals, to never find them in the first place, all whilst armed with resources of which we can only dream. We have had less than a fraction of that time to contend with two difficult and sensitive cases – the business of the Head-Hider, alongside the ongoing problem of the Sweetings’ delinquency. Yet a few individuals claim that our rate of play is not good enough when set beside the possibility of bringing in the police – and so the Division is pushed almost to the brink of closure.’”
I felt the bristle of panic skidding down the bench. Gertie and the others were gaping at the Director – even Mr. Adelstein, affecting his usual implacability, had a touch of startled confusion about the slackness of his jaw. I confess, I was surprised to see them all so stunned. When Septimus had told me of the council’s deadline, choking the words out in Property’s garret, I had assumed the matter to have been – well, rather more widely known than it apparently was.
The Director sighed, catching every glance. “This next part might come as a shock – but it is the very reason why I shall be obliged to make a speech to the council in the first place.”
Mr. Adelstein’s eyes narrowed – and he spoke, for the first time since skulking back through the doors. “The council have imposed an ultimatum.”
“Astute as ever, Matthew.” The Director’s voice was cool, but not in the least unforgiving. “Continuing: ‘As you will recall, one month ago you saw fit to set a deadline for our work, on which our continued funding would depend. We were to rid the town of the Sweetings by November sixth, or else – ’”
Millicent all but dropped her tea. “But – that’s tomorrow!”
“Precisely,” the Director returned calmly. “Which is why I have sent a letter requesting a new meeting at the council’s earliest convenience – ”
“And why we’ve got to sort out the speech,” Cassandra added, flashing Millicent a quick smile – a glint of reassurance. “Fast.”
The Director lifted the ledger again. “‘I wish to be clear about where we stand. I cannot deny that the matter of the Sweetings remains unsettled. New developments have forced a major alteration of our tactics.’”
“’Cause they’ve got a gun!” Gertie burst out. “I say we tell them as much!”
Cassandra grimaced her agreement, tipped down over her mother’s shoulder to take up the speech. “Let’s put ‘New developments – namely, their procurement of dangerous weaponry – have forced a major alteration of our tactics. We will be most effective if we are given chance to regroup, and come back stronger against the heightened threat. With lives at stake, we cannot afford to cut our work short. We cannot be measured by impossible standards – we have to make our own standards, and develop our own strategies. Calling in the police and yet more pistols might solve your problem now, but it won’t help anything in the long run.’”
The Director glanced at her, the faintest of tremors threading her voice. “Cassandra, you must write that down!”
The room softened to silence as Cassandra lifted the book – but for the thin scratch of her pencil, a faint scuttling under the floorboards, the occasional snap and crumple of the logs in the burner. The market had almost closed, leaving bare cobbles and country hush in its wake. Gertie caught my eye, flung me a wry grin. Just another afternoon at the Div, eh, Hyssop?
I smiled my agreement, glanced back to the nearest window. The street-lamps were lit against the gloom outside, tipping yellow splashes of light through the panes and the unpatched glass. Surely the meeting with the council wouldn’t take place today, before Septimus had a chance to hear the speech? Even if she didn’t make it back in time – even if she stayed another night on Mr. Adelstein’s chaise, with my journal –
The doors slipped open. Mr. Adelstein started, hastily pressing a scowl away. Even Cassandra glanced up from her writing, the pencil trembling above the page, a spasm of astonished unease skittering across her face.
Septimus blinked at us, nudged the doors shut behind her. She was every inch herself, and every inch something raw-edged and new, in the same faltering moment. Her hair still hung loose, sturdy and heady-textured, arching over her shoulders like nothing so much as polished wood. She had resumed her uniform, with the worst of its dirt scrubbed off, but the elbows and trousers were still torn in holes. Her face was a burst of purpling bruises, stark under her navy eyes, and a plaster had been spread across the sharp new off-set of her nose.
The room stared on, and the colour smarted in her cheeks.
Please. Look at me.
Her gaze darted about, from Cassandra and the Director to the bench – and, plums, where I perched at the end of it.
Nothing left to mask me now. No bedraggled disguise. No tangles of wordy thoughts to thicket myself in. There was only her look, and the careful inscrutability – and, for all I knew, the pain! – keeping her face still, and the realisation jolting in my chest: she couldn’t tell me anything yet. Not until we were alone. Not with everyone in the Division still gawping at her.
She blinked – broke our stare – then picked her way past Mr. Adelstein, leaned against the dormitory door, and folded her arms.
The silence stretched on. It was Cassandra’s to fill, with one last wary glance at Septimus, her voice rising out of the ledger. The Director slumped against her chair as her daughter took over, closed her eyes with a sigh.
“‘But the matter of the Head-Hider has been solved,’” Cassandra announced to the room, straightening up as she did so. “‘The Division has been put to the test, but not in the manner determined by yourselves – not in a manner that anyone could have expected.’”
Her face tweaked, a breath’s glimpse of her usual smirk. “Think we can say that again.”
“Hear, hear,” Gertie agreed, grinning at her.
“‘There was never a murderer out to plague the town. There was not even a connection with the Sweetings. There was nothing but two individuals, and the severed head they obtained for the express purpose of undermining our abilities, and compromising our chances of meeting your deadline. The names may startle you, but I must give them: Lady Elvira Miltonwaters, General Member of this very council, and her maid Adelaide Danadlenddu – a girl placed under my roof by her employer to disrupt the Division’s affairs.’”
Cassandra squared her shoulders, jerked up her chin. “‘Both Lady Miltonwaters and Adelaide Danadlenddu have been escorted to Hartgate Gaol by members of the Division, along with the severed head, discovered in a chest in Lady Miltonwaters’s bedroom.’”
Gertie snorted. “You should’ve seen the butler’s face – ”
“Hang on – you what?”
The room jolted, led in large part by my gasp. It was the first Septimus had spoken since slipping in. Her voice was quite as bruised as her face – though even that hardly softened the smarting incredulity in it.
“You put ’em in a gaol?”
Gertie glanced round, plait bristling, defensive. Her contingent did the same, darting anxious looks along the bench. “Didn’t exactly have another option! It wasn’t like you lot with the pig-stealers – we couldn’t just take them to my father.”
Her voice sharpened. “We’ve heard bits of what they said last night. You think we could leave them be, when they all but threatened to kill the Director?”
Oliver gulped. “And Milady didn’t want to go quietly.”
“Exactly!” Millicent added hotly. “She was there, yelling to the whole street, saying she’d get her marquess uncle to skin us all – ”
“But that can’t be it!”
Septimus caught the volley of glares, sighed, twitched her words until they softened. “Look. I ain’t saying you’re wrong about ’em. But – if they’re in a gaol – ain’t that just fair game for the police to take over?”
Everything skidded into silence. Gertie bit her lip, eyes widening even as they veered away to pucker the floorboards.
“Then what would you suggest, Septimus?”
The Director was watching her, grave and thoughtful. Pomegranates, and she’d only just woken up!
“I – well.” Septimus swallowed. “I’d want to come up with something else. I – I don’t right know what yet, but – point is, we should. I grew up in gaol, in all but name, and I can tell you – there’s nothing good in there.”
The Director nodded. “We will reconsider the appropriate response to their situation, and when we have it, we will make sure to see it through.”
“And you think – what?” Cassandra muttered, eyes flicking up from the ledger. “That Hartgate Gaol will just give them back to us?”
“I think,” her mother returned evenly, “that this is not a matter over which you will be obliged to fret, Cassandra.”
Cassandra tugged her shoulders taut. Her gaze darted to Septimus, like a flinch, as if expecting a torrent of quips – not that Septimus seemed to notice. “Of course. I – might as well tell you all – I’m taking some leave from the Div. For my – I mean – that last case – I – I need time to recover. And I’m not – I – right now, you’ll do better if I’m not here.”
She stared at me then, with the same narrow-eyed wariness she had turned on me ever since I emerged from the dormitory. I had, of course, been careful to boil down the contents of my transcript, at least as far as wider distribution was concerned. No one here had skimread her anguish, or her guilt, unless Mr. Adelstein had snuck a glimpse over my shoulder as I copied at his desks. But I quite couldn’t pretend I hadn’t heard it all – and she knew that just as sharply as I.
