скачать книгу бесплатно
Ivy clambered up from the ground, still shaking and clearly torn between smiling and sobbing. “We’ll get you out of here,” she said.
Reality came crashing down around me. What if the doctors wouldn’t let me go? What if they still thought I was insane?
I turned to my twin. “Did it all really happen?” I asked quietly. “All of it? Violet’s scheming? The fight on the rooftop? Miss Fox taking her away?”
Ivy stared back at me for a moment, and then she nodded. “All of that, and more …”
Miss Finch went back inside with the secretary. I almost tried to stop her going, half worried that they’d persuade her to leave me here. But she said she would set things right and get me discharged.
Ivy and I sat shoulder to shoulder on the bench next to the pond. It was just like we’d done so many times at our aunt Phoebe’s house when we’d stayed there as children, long before Ivy went to live with her.
Once I’d convinced her that I was all in one piece, Ivy told me everything that had happened. I learnt about how she’d been forced to go to Rookwood and pretend to be me, the hunt for the diary entries, her new friend Ariadne, evil, money-hungry Miss Fox and her secret daughter: Miss Finch.
For the first time in my life, I was speechless.
When she’d finished, I was gaping like one of the goldfish. Finally, I managed to say something.
“You know what this means?”
“What?” she said.
“I’m a GENIUS. My plan actually worked! You found the trail I left you!”
Ivy gave me a withering look. “You’re the genius?”
I grinned.
“What’s happened to you?” she asked, her face suddenly slipping back into concern. “This place, I can’t imagine …”
I wasn’t ready for that question. I frowned, feeling sick. Despite everything, I was free, that was all that mattered now, wasn’t it?
“Please,” she insisted. “I need to know.”
A thought occurred to me. In the pocket of my horrible regulation grey smock, I had something that could answer all her questions. Wordlessly, I handed it over.
I am insane.
At least, that’s what they tell me. I didn’t believe it at first. Of course I wasn’t insane. I knew what I’d seen. Her name was Violet, and Miss Fox made her disappear. I was there. I’d written it all down, hadn’t I?
Doubt crept in. They said I was having delusions, that I’d dreamt up a scenario on a rooftop, where a teacher had made a girl disappear. Doctor Abraham told me it couldn’t be true. Why would a teacher do that? It didn’t make any sense. It was a delusion, created out of my dislike for Miss Fox, he said. All I had to do was admit that I’d made the whole thing up and they’d consider sending me home.
Well, I wouldn’t admit it, obviously. And I’m not even sure that I want to go home. Of course I want to leave this living hell, but my father and stepmother haven’t so much as written me a letter. If they know I’m locked up in here, then they don’t care a jot. The only person who cares is Ivy, and she can’t possibly know. Because she’d come to get me out if she did.
Wouldn’t she?
So, anyway, the days pass. They keep calling me Charlotte, no matter how many times I tell them that’s not my name. I have a tiny room, like a cell, with bars on the windows. It’s painted this horrible shade of mint green that makes me want to vomit. But I’ve spent so much time staring at the walls now that I could draw you a picture of every crack and every paint bubble and every tiny strand of spiderweb.
I have to see Doctor Abraham at noon on weekdays. He says I have a “mental disease”, but honestly he seems to think being a girl is enough of a mental disease on its own. For the first few appointments I just screamed at him and knocked his papers off his desk, demanding he let me out, and all he would say was, “You’re being hysterical, Charlotte”.
Hysterical! I’d like to see how he’d react if he were locked up in here and people tried to act like it was for his own good. “SCARLET!” I yelled back at him. “My name is “Scarlet!” It didn’t seem to help.
I no longer have a diary. My old one, the lovely leather-bound book with SG scored on the cover, is now in pieces around Rookwood, where I prayed my twin Ivy would find it. Once upon a time Ivy had one the same, only with her initials, but she was always too busy with her nose in other people’s books to write down her own story.
I begged and begged the nurses for a notebook to write in, and finally Sister Agnes gave in and brought me this one that she’d only used a few pages of. It was just grocery lists and dull things like “must send that package to Aunt Marie in Dover”, so I tore out the pages and made them into tiny paper planes, which passed a good half hour in this place, where the days are long and empty.
I wish I knew how long I’d been here. Until today I had no way to count the days. I tried scratching marks into the paint, but it had been done by so many inmates before me that I couldn’t keep track of my marks.
But … I’m not like them. Some of them are truly disturbed, they cry and shriek all the time, and I don’t.
It’s just … sometimes, I think perhaps, just maybe, the doctor is right. Why would I be in an asylum if I was perfectly sane? Maybe I just made up the whole thing.
I dreamt that I had a twin who would always be there. I dreamt that I was my father’s little girl, that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. I dreamt that there was a girl named Violet who disappeared into thin air.
The only way that I’ll know if it was all real is if Ivy finds me. But it’s been so long now … it could be too late. The trail I left could have been destroyed; Miss Fox could have found it and tossed it into a fire.
I must have hope. Ivy will find me. She’ll come.
I know it.
I watched the tears roll down Ivy’s face.
“You did it,” I said. “You found me!”
She tossed the tatty notebook aside and swept me into a bone-crushing hug.
“I’m never losing you again,” she promised.
(#ulink_be31ef01-8383-598c-b312-1721641de730)
It’s not easy having to tell your father that, despite him believing the opposite, you’re not dead. But looking on the bright side: at least I was alive to tell him that.
Ivy and I knocked on the door of our childhood home the day after that first telephone call from the asylum (a lot of silence followed by a lot of shouting). Miss Finch had managed to get the school to pay for a room in a boarding house while everything was sorted out and Father made his way back from London.
It was a cold day at the beginning of November, and we stood shivering on the steps of the cottage.
The door was opened by a hideous she-troll.
“Oh. There’s two of you again,” she sneered.
“How nice to see you, dear stepmother,” I replied, pushing past her.
She huffed indignantly at me as Ivy followed me in. “Scarlet, if you think you can walk around like you own the place just because of what happened, then you’ve got another thi—”
She froze mid-sentence at the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Suddenly she put on a different expression like a mask, and pulled us into her arms. “Oh, girls,” she simpered. “I’m just so glad to have you home safe.”
Father stepped down into the hall. When his eyes met mine, he took a deep breath and adjusted his tie.
“Scarlet,” he said.
“Father.”
“I just … I can’t believe it. You’re here.” His normally cold exterior was showing some cracks – tears glinted in his eyes. I broke free of my stepmother, ran over and embraced him. He wrapped his arms around the back of my head, not quite touching me, but it was closer than we’d been in years.
Ivy hung back. “We need to tell you everything,” she said. “Rookwood isn’t just awful, it’s dangerous. And what Miss Fox did—”
Our stepmother snorted. “It’s all over now, isn’t it? This Miss Fox has run away. There’s no need to trouble your father with such things.”
Father straightened up and looked at his wife. “No, Ivy’s right,” he said. “I want to understand how this happened. Let’s go to the study.”
He led us away from her, and I couldn’t help feeling a little amused by how horrified she looked at being left out of the conversation. Why did she want to avoid the subject of what had happened, anyway?
We walked through the house, past familiar doors and fireplaces and furniture. The landscape of my childhood. Harry, one of my young stepbrothers, peered round a door and stuck his tongue out at me. What a way to welcome your sister back from the dead! I reached over to give him a slap, but Ivy grabbed my wrist and pulled me past.
Father’s study was still dull and sparsely furnished, with a mahogany writing desk, a chair and some filing cabinets. Ivy and I sat down on the floor, beside the fire that half-heartedly smouldered in the hearth.
Father sat in the chair and began polishing his glasses.
“I don’t know where to start,” Ivy said.
“I do,” I replied.
I told him everything that had happened. I told him about Vile Violet, my roommate who had bossed me around and spied on me and stolen my things. I told him about wicked Miss Fox, who had taken Violet away after she threatened to reveal a dark secret up on the rooftops. I told him how I’d tried to confront Miss Fox, only for her to smuggle me out of school and have me locked up in the asylum.
Father stared intently at the wall above my head, but I could tell he was listening from the sharp intake of breath every time I got to a shocking moment.
Ivy chimed in towards the end, telling him what had happened at Rookwood in the meantime. I’d heard more of her story in the boarding house and on the train. How Miss Fox had hidden me away to save her own skin, to stop anyone finding out that she had an illegitimate daughter. Not to mention that she was funding her lifestyle with the money paid by parents as school fees (perhaps explaining why the only thing on the dining hall menu was stew).
“It was a nightmare, Father,” I finished, “and I’m just so glad to be home. So can we stay?”
He looked at me. “No.”
“Why?” I gaped at him.
He took off his glasses and put them down on the desk. “Scarlet, you know why. You’ve got to go back to school.”
I felt a wave of unease wash over me.
“But Father, someone from that school put Scarlet in an asylum and pretended she was dead,” said my twin. “You can’t send us back there!”
I looked at her, surprised that shy, timid Ivy had spoken out for once. But our father didn’t seem to notice. “It was just that Miss Fox character. And she won’t be returning.”
I stood up, fists clenched. “I won’t go back there! You can’t make me!”
Father didn’t rise to it. “Edith hasn’t got time to run around after you two. She has the boys to think of.”
Edith. Our stepmother. I hated the way he said her name. It was clear he cared about her more than he cared about us.
I heard Ivy mutter something at the carpet.
“What was that?” Father asked.
She climbed to her feet. “I said, are you sure Edith wasn’t involved with this? She was the one that told us Scarlet was … you know … She was the one who identified the body, wasn’t she? She offered to take care of the funeral arrangements, everything …”
Our father went deathly silent, and for a second I thought he was going to slap her. But his breath came out shakily and then he spoke again. “Don’t be foolish. She cares for you. We both do. That’s why we want to see you get an education, and become independent young ladies.”
Ivy stared at the floor, and I knew she was remembering the first time he had said that. The first time he sent me away.
“Father,” I said quietly. “Don’t. Don’t send us back to Rookwood. Please.”
He shook his head. “I know you’ve had a difficult time. I’ll think about it.”
Father ushered us out of his study, leaving us standing in the hallway. I gritted my teeth, and contemplated giving his door a good bashing. But then I spotted Harry’s gormless face staring at me from the parlour door.
I ran over and into the room. He tried to duck down behind the armchair, but I grabbed him by his collar and pulled him up.
“What are you up to, you little weasel?” I demanded.
“Nothing!” he said, scrabbling and trying to get away.
“I bet you were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”
He kicked me in the shins. I was momentarily distracted and dropped him. “I wish you’d go away again!” he yelled, running to the other side of the room and trying to flatten out his scruffy hair. Which was pointless, because it always looked like a bird’s nest.
“You little …” I started, raising my fist. Ivy clutched my arm.
“Mummy hates you,” he said. “We’ve all been better off without you. We’ve actually had money and I got new shoes and—”
He probably would’ve continued that sentence, but I barrelled towards him. I tried to grab him again, but he ducked under my arms and ran away shrieking. Ugh. What a hideous brat.
In the suddenly quiet parlour, Ivy spoke.
“Scarlet,” she whispered. “I think I might have been right. I think our stepmother was involved with this. If they had more money, maybe that’s because she was bribed by Miss Fox to go along with it.”
I squeezed my fists so tightly that I could feel my nails digging in. “I bet she was. That disgusting TROLL. I’ll kill her! I’ll—”
Ivy interrupted. “But say it is true. How did Miss Fox know that our stepmother wanted us out of the picture?”
I felt my cheeks turn hot. Of course. There was something I’d forgotten. “Ah. My first day of school. We may have had a small argument in front of everyone, including Miss Fox. I might have been a bit insulting to our dear stepmother, and she may have started yelling that I was a leech and it would be better if I disappeared forever.”
Ivy sat down heavily in the armchair and put her head in her hands. “Scarlet,” she said finally, her voice muffled, “are you saying at least some of this whole mess was just because you can’t control your temper?”
I shrugged. How was I to know that Miss Fox would turn out to be so evil that she’d try and convince everyone I was dead?
After what seemed like an age of Ivy trying to calm me down, I decided that we should go to the garden. Down past the thorn bushes and out into the thin woods, there was a winding footpath that led to a clearing and a babbling brook. It was a special place for us. A good place to escape to.
As we walked past the study door, I heard raised voices. It was Father and Edith. I came to a stop, Ivy nearly walking into the back of me.
“…HAVE to send them back.” The sound of our stepmother’s voice floated through the door. I leant up against it, and reluctantly Ivy did the same. “They need to grow up.”
