Splendors and Glooms (7 page)

Outside, the night was icy and serene. A gibbous moon hung above Lake Windermere. She saw its light shimmer on the surface of the water, and thought of how cold the water must be. She wished she were strong enough to leave the house and go down to the lake. The glacial waters would be chill and clean, and she had heard that drowning was painless. Whereas fire —

She shook her head. She was not the sort of weakling who killed herself. While she lived, she would fight. There must be some way to tame the fire opal before the fever consumed her. Even Grisini had said
unless.
There must be a solution, and he had nearly told her what it was. Once again she vowed to herself that she would not send for him; she would never humble herself to ask him for help. Nevertheless —

She turned from the window, catching sight of the mirror over the mantelpiece, and gasped aloud. The reflection in the glass was not her own. A young woman stood lashed to a wooden stake. A crowd of people surrounded her, faceless in the smoke. The woman was burning, and her mouth opened in a soundless scream.

Cassandra wondered if she were dreaming. She looked from side to side, seeking comfort in the presence of familiar things. Carved wood and red damask, gilded chair and dressing table, candlestick and washstand, and the lake outside the window . . . She was awake. She was not dreaming.

Her eyes went back to the looking glass. Another woman had appeared: an older woman this time, with wild hair and a haggard countenance. She, too, was burning — until the smoke blotted her out and the witch beheld a third woman: one whose face reminded Cassandra of her only childhood friend. The third victim of the flames was not Marguerite, but she resembled her: her long curls caught the blaze and soared upward.

Cassandra raised her hands to block out the sight. Peering through her fingers, she stumbled toward the bed. She drew the bed curtains and dragged the blankets over her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the flames still danced, scarlet against the black of her eyelids.

G
risini’s landlady, Mrs. Pinchbeck, was fond of pets. In her narrow three-story house, she maintained five dogs, two cats, a parrot, and a canary. Lizzie Rose loved dogs, but life at Mrs. Pinchbeck’s had taught her the melancholy truth that there could be too many. Since coming to live with Grisini, Lizzie Rose had taken it upon herself to see that the dogs were walked twice a day, but the results were not satisfactory. At least one of the dogs — Lizzie Rose suspected Pomeroy, the bulldog — was not housebroken, and the house was pungent indeed. It was also noisy: the lodger on the top floor played the trumpet, the cats waged war in the back alley, the canary was shrill, the parrot strident, and the dogs yapped frantically whenever they heard anything, saw anything, or smelled anything. The morning after Clara’s birthday party, Lizzie Rose slept through someone banging on the front door and the eruption of barking that followed. It was only when Ruby, the little spaniel that shared her bed, leaped to her feet and yapped, that Lizzie Rose opened her eyes.

“Shhh, Roo,” she said sleepily. “Lie down, there’s a dear.”

She patted the dog, feeling the tensed muscles under the silky fur. Ruby had begun life as one of Mrs. Pinchbeck’s dogs but had deserted her mistress when Lizzie Rose came to live with Grisini. Ruby was a morbidly sensitive dog, drawn to anyone in distress; Lizzie Rose, grieving for her parents, found comfort in the spaniel’s love. In no time at all, the two were inseparable.

“Broken!” shrieked the parrot from downstairs. “No good! No more! It’s broken!”

Ruby continued to bark. There were strange men in the house. It was not to be borne.

“Lizzie Rose,” whispered Parsefall from outside Lizzie Rose’s bedroom, “it’s coppers.”

“Coppers?” echoed Lizzie Rose.

“I seen ’em out the winder. I seen their big ’elmets.”

Lizzie Rose climbed out of bed and scooped up the spaniel. “Hush, Ruby.” She stepped from her bedroom into the parlor.

What Lizzie Rose called her bedroom was in fact nothing of the kind. Grisini’s lodgings consisted of two rooms: his private bedroom, and a large parlor. Parsefall slept in a nest of blankets before the parlor fire. When Lizzie Rose joined the household, Grisini — with the air of one offering the jewels of the Orient — purchased a straw mattress and invited her to share the hearth with Parsefall. Lizzie Rose declined the honor. Since Grisini’s parlor was cluttered from floor to ceiling, she built herself a little room out of rubbish. It occupied one corner of the parlor: seven feet square, with walls five feet high. The walls were made from old bits of puppet scenery, Grisini’s former caravan, fragments of ancient furniture, a shattered bookcase, empty cartons, and yellowed newspapers tied together with string. A broomstick draped with a sequined curtain functioned as a door.

Lizzie Rose kept the interior as tidy as she could. She swept out the dog hair and made her bed every day, smoothing the dingy quilt over the lumpy mattress. Though her room was far from elegant, she valued its privacy. She had twice caught Parsefall trying to watch her undress. Though she slapped his face for it, she didn’t trust him not to do it again.

Parsefall was fully awake. He slept in his clothes, and they were grimy and creased. “Grisini’s down there, too,” he said in a half whisper. “He must’ve gone down to cadge breakfast from Mrs. Pinchbeck. Then the coppers banged on the door, and she ’ad to let ’em in, didn’t she? Grisini won’t like it — ’avin’ coppers in the ’ouse — and she won’t, neither.”

“Policemen in the
house,
” Lizzie Rose corrected him, aspirating the
h.
She glanced out the window. The street was only partly visible. Patches of yellow-gray fog drifted and settled, blocking her view.

“Cut off your nose to spite your face!” screamed the parrot. “It’s broken!”

A shriek from Mrs. Pinchbeck came from below.

“
Now
they’ve done it,” Parsefall observed, not without satisfaction. “She’s ’avin’ one of her Spasms.”

Lizzie Rose sighed. Both she and Parsefall were familiar with Mrs. Pinchbeck’s main complaints: Palpitations and Spasms. Palpitations were eased by hot water, sugar, and rum, but Spasms required gin. “I’d better go to her,” she said reluctantly. “I hid the gin bottle.”

Parsefall detained her, snatching at her wrist. “What if they come up ’ere?”

“Don’t worry,” Lizzie Rose said gently. “They won’t hurt us —” But Parsefall was not listening. He dashed to the bedroll before the fire and attacked the bedclothes with frantic haste.

“Parse, they’re not going to arrest you for not making your bed —”

Parsefall flung her a look of pure contempt.

“Come along, come along!” Grisini’s voice was expansive. “Watch the stairs,
signori
— they are treacherous! One false step, and you’ll break your necks!”

Lizzie Rose put Ruby down and withdrew to change out of her nightdress. She pulled a dress over her head and tugged on her flannel petticoat — there wasn’t time for outer petticoats, but hers were too limp to make much difference.

“Parsefall!” shouted Grisini. “Lizzie Rose, my jewel! Come and meet the gentlemen of the police!”

He sounded delighted. Ruby yapped lustily. Lizzie Rose buttoned her dress, shoved her feet into her boots, and smoothed her plaited hair. She looked frowsy and it grieved her, but it was the best she could do.

Parsefall stood just outside the sequined curtain. With unwonted tidiness, he had rolled up his bedding and stashed it in the corner. Lizzie Rose fished for his hand and was surprised when Parsefall let her take it. His fingers were ice-cold.

The two policemen appeared fascinated by Grisini’s parlor. The room was crammed floor to ceiling with trunks, casks, and baskets, which were in turn choked with rags, crockery, rusted ironmongery, empty bottles, tools, brushes, papers, and books. Disused string puppets hung from the ceiling: some naked, some bald, others missing an arm or a leg.

“Children, this is Sergeant Croft and Constable Hawkins of Sir Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police Force,” said Grisini. “
Signori,
these are my wards — Miss Elizabeth Rose Fawr and Master Parsefall Hooke.”

Lizzie Rose dropped a curtsy. Her father had told her how to deal with policemen. “Meek as a housemaid,” he had impressed upon her, “and polite as a princess.” She raised her eyes and smiled as if the policemen were her friends. “How do you do, sir?”

“The children will tell you all that you wish to know.” Grisini raised both hands and flicked his fingers open. “My dear children, tell them the truth! Tell it all!”

Lizzie Rose and Parsefall looked at each other, puzzled. The constable spoke. He was a swarthy, muscular-looking man, but he struck Lizzie Rose as being friendlier than the sergeant. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to talk to them alone for a bit.”

“Would you, by God?” Grisini sounded impressed. “Magnificent! I shall await you downstairs!” He bowed to both men and sauntered to the door of the lodgings, swinging it open and shut with a flourish that would have won him an exit applause in any theatre.

Lizzie Rose sniffed. Parsefall was frightened, she could tell. She could also smell the constable, who had had sausages for breakfast, and who, if she wasn’t mistaken, had a baby at home. Lizzie Rose smiled at him trustingly. Surely a man with a baby would not be unkind.

“All right, now.” Constable Hawkins countered her smile with a stern look. “How old are you, girl?”

“I’ll be fourteen in February,” Lizzie Rose answered promptly. “And Parsefall’s eleven,” she added, so that Parsefall would not have to speak. Parsefall’s age was in fact open to question. No one in his past life had kept track of his birthdays, and Parsefall changed his age whenever it suited him.

“And what relation are you to Mr. Grisini?”

“None, sir,” said Lizzie Rose. “My father was David Fawr, the actor. He died of diphtheria two years ago — my mother, too, and our troupe disbanded. Some of my father’s friends wanted to take me, but they couldn’t afford to keep me. Then one of the actors knew Mr. Grisini —”

The constable had stopped listening. “David Fawr?” he said eagerly. “Why, I saw David Fawr as William in
Black-Eyed Susan
! I’ve never forgot him. The way he spoke that speech about the old apple tree —”

“Aspen tree,” Lizzie Rose corrected him. “Yes, sir, my father was famous for that speech. People used to cry —”

Sergeant Croft interrupted them by clearing his throat. The constable looked as if he couldn’t remember what to ask next. The sergeant prodded him. “Start with yesterday afternoon.”

Constable Hawkins spoke purposefully. “Miss Fawr, you spent yesterday afternoon in Chester Square, at the home of the Wintermute family.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Lizzie Rose. “We had a performance.”

The sergeant took a step closer to the children. “One of the servants said you had tea with Miss Clara Wintermute,” he said. “Is that true?”

Lizzie Rose met his eyes fearlessly. “Yes, sir, it is. It was very kind of her, wasn’t it, Parsefall?”

Parsefall raised his eyes and said curtly, “Yes.”

“Didn’t it strike you as uncommon, that a young lady like that should take the trouble to arrange a treat for you?”

“Oh, yes, sir, it was uncommon,” Lizzie Rose said warmly. “There’s not many a young lady as would be so kind. We had strawberry jam,” she added, and smiled at the constable, who smiled back.

“What did Miss Wintermute say to you?”

Lizzie Rose paused, remembering. “She told us her name. And she said she’d seen one of our shows in the park, only we didn’t remember her. We meet so many children when we do the shows. But Miss Wintermute remembered us and asked us to take tea with her. I think she was lonely.”

“Lonely.” The constable exchanged glances with the sergeant. “Lonely enough to run away from home?”

Lizzie Rose looked startled. “Run away from home? Oh, no, sir!”

“Did either of you invite her to come here?”

Lizzie Rose shook her head. “No, sir.” She raised one hand, indicating the room around her. “She was a young lady, sir. It wouldn’t have done; it wouldn’t, indeed.”

“Did she say anything —
anything
— about coming here to visit you?”

“No, sir.”

The constable sighed and tried again. “Did she mention any friends — any plans she had — any places she liked to go?” Lizzie Rose went on shaking her head.

“Did she say or do anything out of the common?”

Lizzie Rose thought. “She gave us presents,” she said. She appealed to the policemen. “Let me show you.”

She let go of Parsefall’s fingers and went back into her bedroom. A moment later she emerged with a handful of tissue paper.

“She gave us each a little packet to take home,” she explained. “We each had an orange, a whole one, and a paper cone full of sweets. And she gave me ribbons.” She lifted a coil of ribbon and let the mingled colors fall in spirals. “Green and blue and white — all the best colors for my hair. She’d only seen me once, but she remembered. She gave Parsefall presents, too, didn’t she, Parse?”

Parsefall assented glumly. “Wooden animals,” he said resentfully. “’S’if I woz a baby.”