Cold Stone and Ivy (33 page)

“Yes, sir.”

And closer.

“And for Sebastien to have helped him the way he did . . . He could have died as well.”

She swallowed. “Yes sir.”

“The women of Seventh are very angry.”

He was so close now that he reminded her of the sisters Helmsly-Wimpoll, and his eyes were the largest things in the room. She could only imagine what he was thinking, but she raised her chin a little, determined to bear up under his scrutiny.

“You will need a change of clothes . . .”

“I’m fine wi—”

“We have a wardrobe room upstairs. You are welcome to anything that might fit you. We also have many, many sleeping rooms. Again, you are welcome to any of them. I will have Agnes Tidy show you the way.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I will also have Carl send a telegraph to Rupert at Lasingstoke. They may be growing worried.” His eyes flashed over her again, taking in her now wild hair, boy’s breeches, and muddy riding boots. “Then again, they may not.”

She did not know what to say to that.

With that, he whirled and rolled toward the door, pointing a finger to the sky.

“Back up to the sun, Miss Savage! Up, up, up! Once more into the breach . . .”

And then he was gone out the double doors. Ivy stayed a moment longer before following.

THERE WAS A
grey fog that had settled over the Abbey above Wharcombe Bay and Ivy found herself grateful for the warmth of the peacoat. How anyone could possibly be cured sitting outside in weather like this boggled her mind, but she had to admit that even the fog was a welcome change from the rust and gloom of the Infirmary.

There were five people outside that she could see. Agnes Tidy was pushing a man in one of the wheeled chairs. He was perhaps forty years old, quite thin, and she could hear his breathing from where she stood.

“Mr. Home,” said Frankow, but he pronounced it
Hume
. “He has the tuberculosis. Many of our patients come here for the cure.”

She nodded. Consumption was a terrible disease, killing most who contracted it. The toxic Pea Soup fogs of London, Manchester, and Birmingham were notorious culprits. Those who could afford it would retreat to sanitaria such as Lonsdale, where large doses of fresh air, moderate exercise, and good food could often stave off the symptoms for years. She was surprised the Abbey wasn’t full on account of it.

Her eyes wandered to a table, where another nurse sat with a wild-looking young man. His hair was very dark, uncombed, and longer than hers. His moustache and beard were tangled and his eyes darted about as if watching a swarm of bees. Suddenly, he spied her and rose to his feet, making the sign of the cross and shouting in a strange tongue. To Ivy, he looked the very definition of the word insane.

“Grigori is new here,” said Frankow.

“Grigori?”

The man snatched a stick from the dining table, began to lash it backwards across his neck and shoulders.

“Yes. Grigori Rasmussen, Rastafarian, Raspberry . . . Something like that. At any rate, Grigori comes to us from Pokroyskoye, Siberia. That is in Russia, Miss Savage.”

“What is he saying?”

“Oh, that. He is calling you the Virgin Mary.”

“How odd.” She found a grin tugging at her cheek. “Why is Grigori here at Lonsdale? Does he have the consumption as well?”

“No. He stole a loaf of bread from a church, so they sent him here as penance.”

“I’m afraid I don’t believe you, sir.”

His spectacles whirred and clicked. “He is calling you the Virgin Mary.”

She smiled now.

“Aha. We are finally getting somewhere. He is here, Miss Savage, because of two reasons. One, he is believed to be a clairvoyant mystic and his government is afraid of him. They wish me to confirm or disprove his claims and two, because he cannot die.”

“He cannot die?”

“That is what I said.”

She took a deep breath, thought a moment.

“I do not see with the eyes of a cat,” she said finally.

As they continued their tour of the grounds, there was the sound of flapping wings, and Ivy looked up to the roof of the Abbey. She could see a young woman, almost a silhouette, with pigeons on her head and shoulders. She waved down at them and Ivy recognized her as the young woman from Frankow’s office.

Frankow sighed. “I’m afraid Sebastien was quite right. Not even the cowboys of America are prepared to handle our Lizzie. Oh look, over there. A breakthrough . . .”

Agnes Tidy was talking to Mr. Home as he rose to his feet and took a few steps. Smiling, he raised his arms up to the sky.

And began to rise from the ground.

Ivy blinked. The man was rising from the ground. He was smiling and rising from the ground. One foot, two feet, a yard now, and higher. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The man was at least ten feet above the ground and far below him, Tidy was clapping her hands.

“Oh my . . .” Ivy whispered.

Now the levitating man began to spin, slowly making circles with his body in midair. Once, twice, three times he circled before slowly, ever so slowly, he began to descend. Tidy fussed over him and tucked him back into his chair.

Together, man and nurse turned and wheeled out of sight.

“Mr. Home is doing much better now,” said Frankow.

It was remarkable the things she was simply taking in stride.

There was the rattle of another chair and Ivy’s breath caught in her throat. Her mother was being wheeled across the lawn, and Frankow waved them over. Ivy waited, wringing her hands like damp dishcloths, until the chair came to a complete stop.

“Hello, Mum. It’s me, Ivy.”

There was no response. She bent down and hugged her, fighting back the rush of tears. She kissed her cheek and took her hands.

“She’s looking well,” she said softly. “Her colour is good. And she looks to have put on some weight.”

“Three pounds, miss,” said the nurse. “She’s eating well, sleeping well. She sits outside most days, even the rainy ones.”

She nodded, squeezed her mother’s hands.

“Have you . . . tried . . . anything on her, Doctor? Any of your scientific techniques, I mean?”

“Do you mean to ask if I am experimenting on her, Miss Savage?”

“No! Yes . . . Maybe. I don’t know, sir.”

“Not to worry. I understand completely.” He inclined his head. “We have tried two things since she has been here. The first is the Baths.”

“The Baths?”

“It is essentially a soundproof tank of salt water. There is no light, there is no scent, there is no sound. The water is warmed up to exactly the temperature of the human body and the salt content makes it dense enough to float without exertion. It is most relaxing.”

“And what do you do in the Baths?”

“Well, there is nothing to do in the Baths, but ‘Be.’ The mind is freed from all external stimuli and therefore opened to explore its own mental acuity and spiritual pathways.”

She swallowed, remembering Franny Helmsly-Wimpoll and her
Hypersensory Mental Acuity, Spiritualism, and Communion with the Realm of Departed Souls.

“And the other?”

“Just like Sebastien. Small electrical charges into her cerebellum.”

She should have been outraged. She should have been shocked.

“I see,” was all she could say.

Yes, quite remarkable the things she was taking in stride.

“As I said earlier, there is little I may be able to do.”

She sighed, nodded, squeezed her mother’s hands again. “Thank you for doing this. For trying.”

“Not at all, child.”

And they continued their walk along the grounds of Lonsdale Abbey, Ivy pushing her mother in the wheeled chair, fighting back the tears and being both the happiest and the saddest she’d ever been in her life.

THERE WERE AT
least thirty bodies in the morgue of the Royal Hospital, all wrapped in tarp. The mortician had gone home for the night and the room was cold and dark and smelled of formaldehyde. Christien didn’t care. He was certain his heart was colder, his mood darker, and he felt as dead as those on the slabs.

He moved over to a table where a body lay shrouded in black. He didn’t need to check her tag. He himself had wrapped her.

“I’m sorry, Annie,” he said quietly, and he looked down at the ring. It was turning his finger a sickly purple, the skin around the ring puckering and tight. “I know it’s yours but it’s stuck. I’ve tried everything. It won’t come off.”

He could make out the outline of her face, the bump of her nose, the hollow of her eyes.

“Marie Kelly has one too, just so you know, and Albert Victor. What a strange trio to have your rings.” He sighed, turned to lean against the table. “Did you love him? I doubt it. Eddy’s not terribly lovable, is he? I do hope you loved someone, and that someone loved you. This is a lonely place to end up.”

It was raining outside and he could hear dripping from the ceiling pipes on the floor. Water was not good for cadavers, he thought. The hospital needed to invest in a better room, but then again, he doubted anyone complained overmuch.

“Do No Harm, says the oath.” He sighed. “But that’s not the same as doing good. I don’t know where to draw the line anymore. I have to talk to Williams. I know he’s trying to help you girls, but all this has gone terribly wrong. It seemed clear at the time. All about the research, he said, but it’s grown far too complicated, and I think he’s covering for someone. If I talk to Trevis or Bondie, they’ll investigate and we’ll all get the sack. All my schooling gone, because of you, Annie. You and your three damned rings.”

He could see a rat moving in the shadows. Terrible, the state of things.

“But if I don’t say anything, then I know this ring is going to get tighter and tighter and I’ll lose my finger and my career will be damned anyway. Then how will I take care of Ivy or anybody else? It’s an ethical conundrum.”

There was only the sound of the dripping from the pipes, the hissing of the gaslight. It was almost peaceful down here in the morgue, and he looked at her again.

“Is your spirit alive somewhere? Up north maybe? Is that what Bastien sees? Can he really? I can’t believe it. I just can’t. It’s impossible. And yet . . .”

He sighed.

“And yet, here I am, sitting in a bloody tomb, talking to a dead woman and a rat. I never thought I’d do such a thing. Wouldn’t the Ghost Club be pleased?”

And he sat like that for some time, with only the rat and the body of Dark Annie Chapman for company.

SOMEONE HAD BEEN
singing.

Strange tunes, sure enough, and in another language, but it was singing nonetheless. He didn’t think it was his mother. His mother used to sing all the time, in the nursery, in the hallways, in the gardens. He didn’t remember much of her, but he did remember singing.

He opened his eyes to the ghoulish green lights of the infirmary and the sight of Otto hovering over him with his tarnished faceplate. He saw a series of lights flash, knew that outside the door Carl was being notified of his waking, knew that very soon Frankow would be down to see him and that all would be well.

His mouth was sharp, and he realized that there was a respirator covering the lower half of his face. He reached up, removed it, and inhaled deeply the damp, rusty smell of the infirmary. A sudden stabbing pain at the simple act of breathing and he remembered the fact that sometime, at some point last night, he had been shot.

She had done it. She had got him here and he had lived. That was a bit of a surprise. He hadn’t expected to live. Truth be told, he hadn’t expected to be shot either. Life had a way of throwing things at him. There was always something different around the corner. He would miss her, though, for she would have disappeared the moment she’d dropped him off at the gates of the Abbey. She had looked sweet in her breeches and bowler.

Otto spun along the track and stopped at his left side. Calipers extended from the metallic body, and a set of hoses lowered from the ceiling. The calipers caught the hoses, attached them to suction pads already placed over his heart, at his throat, on his forehead and wrist. He sighed, waiting for Otto to do his work, and let his eyes wander around the recovery room, as familiar to him as the stables of Lasingstoke.

He spied the metallic brace holding his right arm in place, the bandages brown with dried blood. He flexed his fingers, relieved to find everything in working order. Bertie would love a friend with a prosthetic arm. If he ever took up smoking, the flint could come in handy.

And at the foot of the bed, Mumford.

He smiled.

A yellow light flashed over the doors, and they began to swing inward. He could hear the whirring of Frankow’s wheels, and he waited for the bearded face to appear. It did, the great spectacles causing his eyes to warp and bend with the lenses. He was worried, Sebastien could tell, but he masked it well with an arched brow and a patronizing smile.

“Ah. You have finally decided to see what it is like being dead.”