Splendors and Glooms (34 page)

Parsefall nodded sagely. “I thought she woz bedrid, too, but she ain’t. She’s a downy one, ain’t she?”

Lizzie Rose passed Ruby the gristle from her drumstick. “If you mean she’s dishonest, I suppose she might be. Though,” she added, trying to be fair, “she never
said
she couldn’t walk. We only thought so because we never saw her out of bed. I wonder what she was doing, wandering about the house at night.”

“Up to ’er tricks,” Parsefall said cryptically.

Lizzie Rose wondered what kind of tricks an elderly lady could play, all alone in the middle of the night. “I don’t distrust her as much as I did,” she confessed. “We talked on Christmas Eve, and she seemed kinder. And she
is
planning to leave us something in her will — Mrs. Fettle said so.” She frowned, realizing that once again she had become distracted. “If you were asleep all day, where were you sleeping? You weren’t in here — I looked for you. Why did you hide yourself away?”

“I woz in a room with a big bed,” Parsefall said evasively. “I woz tired of this room.”

“All these rooms have big beds,” countered Lizzie Rose. “And I looked though every one. Then I came back and looked here —” All at once she knew what she had missed before. “Parsefall! Where’s Clara?”

Parsefall gave a little jump. Then he shrugged. “Dunno. Must’ve laid ’er down somewhere.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Lizzie Rose. “You
were
hiding from me — and you’re not telling the truth about where, or why, and you’d never leave Clara just
somewhere.
I thought you were avoiding me because you were cross — but you wouldn’t have given me a Christmas present if you were cross. Parsefall, what
is
the matter? Have the servants been horrid to you? Are you afraid of Madama? If you tell me what’s worrying you, I can help — in fact, you must tell me, because I mean to have the truth.”

Parsefall made a face. He snatched a slice of bread from the plate and used his forefinger to butter it, taking great care to ensure that the butter was slathered from crust to crust. He was stalling; Lizzie Rose knew it, and she suspected that he knew she knew it. Finally he muttered, “I wish we could go back t’London.”

“Back to London?” echoed Lizzie Rose. “Parse, we can’t. The police —”

“Maybe we could go see Old Wintermute,” Parsefall said desperately. “Maybe we could give him the emeralds and ask ’im to tell the coppers ’e made a mistake —”

“I don’t think that would work,” said Lizzie Rose. “Dr. Wintermute isn’t the sort of man who tells lies to the police. Besides, there’s the legacy to think of. Madama told Mrs. Fettle that she’s going to send for a lawyer —” All at once she stopped. “Parsefall, what happened to your ear?”

Parsefall fingered the torn earlobe. He looked extraordinarily furtive. “Dunno. I ’ad a scratch on it, and then I picked it.” He fitted the action to the word, plucking at the scab with his fingernail.

Lizzie Rose shuddered. She wasn’t squeamish about many things, but she couldn’t bear the way Parsefall dug at himself when his skin was broken. He scratched himself ceaselessly, like an animal; she had once seen him eat one of his scabs. She cried, “Oh, don’t! It’s too horrid! Do stop, or you’ll start bleeding again!”

Somewhat to her surprise, he did as she asked. He reached across the table to take another sausage. “I don’t like it ’ere,” he complained. “I didn’t want to leave London, but Old Wintermute was after us, an’ you made me, so ’ere we are. But there’s nuffink for me to do ’ere, but go round and round the ’ouse and see wot there is to pinch.” He pointed to the Bible on the sofa. “I can’t read, like you can. I can’t sit an’ sew, like a girl. There ain’t no audience — there ain’t even any streets — no penny gaffs, no magic lantern, no Egyptian ’All. And it’s cold outside and me boots is thin, and I don’t see wot the old lady wants wiv all them trees. So I goes round inside the ’ouse, an’ then you start a-carryin’ on, saying that I’m
worried.
I ain’t worried, but strike me dead if I ain’t blue-deviled, wot wiv ’aving nuffink to do.”

Lizzie Rose leaned her elbows on the table. She knew this was not good manners, but she didn’t care. She stared at him so intently that he wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue. There were dark shadows under his eyes she hadn’t seen before. He looked pale and even ugly; every muscle in his face was tight.

She had told him that she meant to have the truth. Now she saw that the truth could not be forced out of him. The more she pressed him, the more he would lie. And he was lying. He was afraid of something; she could smell it. Whatever it was, she couldn’t protect him — not if he went on hiding from her.

An idea came into her head. She gave a little sigh and changed the subject. “The days are so long here. We ought to rehearse the puppets.”

His eyes kindled. Lizzie Rose went on cannily.

“We shall have to be quiet, because of Madama, but we ought to work on the new show, just in case there isn’t any legacy. I don’t know the new acts, not properly — and you’ll have to teach me to be a better figure worker, because I still float the puppets. Will you do that? And perhaps I could teach you skating in return.”

“We could rehearse,” Parsefall said cautiously, but his eyes had brightened. “I’ll teach you.” And as a token of goodwill, he rolled the rest of his bread into a ball and tossed it in the air for Ruby to catch.

T
hey rehearsed in the Green Room. Parsefall tried to persuade himself that he was safe as long as it was daylight and Lizzie Rose was with him. He wanted to believe that Grisini would wait until dark before he returned to the house. But the puppet master’s words echoed in Parsefall’s ears:
I can enter the house whenever I like. If you fail me, I will be obliged to hurt you.

And Parsefall had failed. He hadn’t succeeded in stealing the fire opal, and he dared not make a second attempt on the stone. Clara had warned him against it, and he couldn’t get into the old lady’s room. Since Madama’s collapse, the servants had taken turns watching over the sick woman. Parsefall racked his brain, but he could think of no way out of the dilemma. He had never learned to think ahead more than a day or two, and he was too frantic to weigh his choices.

So he rehearsed. When he was busy with the puppets, he was not afraid. Grisini and Madama were only shadows, compared to the solid little manikins on the stage. Parsefall worked tirelessly, ardently, and he saw to it that Lizzie Rose kept pace with him.

Lizzie Rose divided her time between the puppet theatre and the lake. The weather remained cold, and she went skating every afternoon. “You should come, too,” she said earnestly. “It’s
good
outside — so pure, with the lake and the snow and the fresh air.”

Parsefall did not love fresh air. In his experience, it was apt to be cold. He tried skating once and found it a failure. His ankles were weak, and they buckled. After that, when Lizzie Rose went skating, he retreated to the Tower Room.

There was a spyglass in the room. Using it, Parsefall could see the stone urn where Ruby was tethered. If the dog was tied up, Lizzie Rose was skating; if the long rope hung slack, Lizzie Rose was on her way back to the house. Parsefall listened for her footsteps on the back stairs. When he heard them, he unbolted the tower door and darted across the hall to the Green Room.

He was in the Green Room late one morning when he heard Lizzie Rose shouting for him. There was a note of panic in her voice. “Parsefall!
Parsefall!
” The door swung open, and she burst in, gasping for breath. “Parsefall — listen — it’s dreadful — but I have to tell you —” She took a great gulp of air. “Grisini’s here.”

Parsefall felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. “’Ere? In the ’ouse? Now?”

“No. Not now. Not in the house.” Lizzie Rose flung her skates to the floor. “He’s in the gatehouse. He’s living there. I saw him —” She broke off. “Why, you knew, didn’t you?”

Parsefall widened his eyes, dramatizing his astonishment. It was a weak effort, and a belated one.

“You’ve known ever since we came here, haven’t you? That’s what’s been wrong with you! Oh, Parsefall! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He told me not to. ’E said he’d hurt you.” Parsefall’s voice cracked. He was almost afraid to look at Lizzie Rose. He lied to her so often and she always believed him. Now that he was telling her the truth, it stood to reason that she wouldn’t. But her face was transparent, revealing a series of emotions: skepticism, shock, pity, indignation.

She commanded, “Tell me what happened.”

He bent his head. He didn’t want to remember Grisini crouched over him. The carpet snagged his attention. Mossy green, with a score of other colors zigzagging through it: sallow gold and rosy brown and blue gray and black . . .

“Parsefall, tell me!”

He parried the question with one of his own. “What’d ’e say to you?”

“Nothing. He was asleep. He didn’t see me.” Lizzie Rose shuddered. “I was skating, and I was thinking about — oh, everything. I know it’s heartless to wonder what will happen after someone dies, but I was wondering what Madama might leave us in her will. I was wishing we could live close to the lake. And then I remembered the first morning we came and how we both liked the little gatehouse with the tower. So I wondered — if I asked Madama — if perhaps she might give us the gatehouse.”

Parsefall began to understand. He went to one of the chairs before the fire and sat down. Lizzie Rose shrugged off her coat and knelt by his feet, with Ruby close at hand. “I decided to look inside. I didn’t think anyone lived there, so there wouldn’t be any harm in peeking in the windows. I took off my skates and walked down to the gatehouse. The ivy’s all over the windows, but there was one window on the ground floor. . . . I looked through, and I saw Grisini! He was asleep in an armchair, as still as wax — oh, Parsefall — I thought he might be dead. I almost hoped it. But he twitched, just a little, and I knew he wasn’t.” She hugged Ruby. “I was dreadfully frightened. I ducked under the windowsill and crept away, and I didn’t run until I was past the trees. It was queer, because he was asleep, but I was so afraid!”

“I know.”

“I ran till I had a stitch in my side. I kept thinking he might be behind me. But then it came to me that Madama must have lied to us. Because if he’s living in the gatehouse, she must know, mustn’t she? And when we first met her, and we told her Grisini was gone, she didn’t seem a bit interested. And I remembered something I overheard when we came here. One of the servants said, ‘First foreigners and then riffraff.’ I was so cross that she called us riffraff, I didn’t stop to think who the foreigners might be, but she must have meant Grisini.” She took a deep breath. “How long have you known he was here?”

Parsefall’s mouth was dry. He thought back to the night when Grisini crouched on top of him. He couldn’t find the words. Ruby squeezed out from Lizzie Rose’s embrace and leaped into his chair. Uninvited and unwelcome, she set about making herself at home in Parsefall’s lap.

Parsefall moistened his lips. “He come in the middle of the night. The night before Christmas Eve, it were. He ’eld me down — wiv his ’and on me mouf — and told me I ’ad to steal that fire opal from Madama. He wants it. But he daren’t steal it for ’imself.”

“Why not?” breathed Lizzie Rose.

“’Cos it’s dangerous,” Parsefall answered. “It’s magic — powerful — but it’s bad for the one that steals it. Clara told me so. She — she comes to me in my sleep.” He saw the shocked look on her face. “Almost every night, I dream about Clara. She says Madama’s a witch and the stone’s cursed, like the Bottle Imp — and summink bad’ll ’appen if I take it. But if I don’t, Grisini’ll come after me. And I don’t know ’ow long I can ’old out.” He stopped, clenching his teeth. “I know you don’t believe me.”

Lizzie Rose had gone pale. “I do believe you,” she said breathlessly. “I dream about Clara, too. She comes and stands at the foot of my bed, and I know she wants to tell me something, but she never speaks.”

“She’s tryin’ to help,” Parsefall said in a low voice. “That night, after Grisini came, I wanted to find a place where ’e couldn’t get me. I woke up with a picklock in me hand, right outside the Tower Room door. I think Clara tol’ me to go in there. After I went in —”

“You went in the Tower Room?”

“I needed a place to ’ide, didn’t I? The locks in this ’ouse are no good — a baby could pick ’em. But the Tower Room has a bolt on the inside of the door. Grisini can’t get in.” He dumped Ruby off his lap and got up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Lizzie Rose followed him to the door, but she looked worried. “But the tower’s unstable,” she protested. “Mrs. Fettle says so. She says —”

Parsefall snorted, dismissing her fears. He led Lizzie Rose down the passage and held open the tower door. Once they were inside, he shot the bolt. “See?” he whispered. “It ain’t so bad.”

Lizzie Rose did not seem to share his opinion. She gazed around the tower, noting the tent shelter he had built. Then her eyes traveled to the mirrors and the panels of black lacquer on the walls. She circled the room, examining the red lines of the maze, the spell books in the bookcase, the Tarot Cards that Parsefall had swept off the table onto the floor. “Oh, Parsefall,” she whispered, “the
smell
. . .”