The Sweet Far Thing

Page 138

“’Ere now. Sit proper, miss,” Brigid scolds, seeing Felicity. Felicity slides both of her feet to the floor with a loud stomp, and with a glance I beseech her to behave.
Brigid runs a finger over the mantel and scowls. “That won’t do.”
“Brigid,” I begin, “do you remember a girl who attended Spence—”
“Lots of girls ’ave attended Spence,” she interrupts. “Can’t remember them all.”
“Yes, well, this one was here back when Mrs. Spence was still alive, before the fire.”
“Oh, so long ago.” She tuts, wiping the mantel with the edge of her apron.
Felicity clears her throat and glares at me. I suppose she thinks she’s helping.
“This girl was a mute. Wilhelmina Wyatt.”
Brigid whirls around, a funny expression on her face. “Blimey, now wot you want to know about that one fer?”
“It was Ann who knew of her. Had a book written by her. And I—we—just wondered what sort of person she was.” I finish with a smile that can only be described as feeble.
“Well, it were a long time ago,” Brigid repeats. She dusts a small Oriental vase with her apron. “But I remember ’er. Miss Wil’mina Wyatt. Mrs. Spence said she was special, in ’er way, that she saw wot most of us don’t. ‘She can see into the dark,’ she said. Well, I didn’t pretend to know wot that meant. The girl couldn’t even speak, bless her soul. But she were always with ’er little book, writing and drawing. That’s ’ow she spoke.”
Just as Dr. Van Ripple told us.
“How did she come to be here? She had no family, I know,” I say.
Brigid’s brow furrows. “Bless me, she did, too.”
“I thought—”
“Wilhelmina Wyatt was Missus Spence’s own blood. Mina was ’er niece.”
“Her niece?” I repeat, for I wonder why Eugenia didn’t tell me this.
“Came to us after ’er mother died, bless ’er soul. I remember the day Missus Spence went to town to fetch ’er. Lil Mina ’ad been put on a boat by ’erself and was found near the Customs ’Ouse. Poor thing. Must’ve been terrifyin’. And things weren’t much better ’ere.” Brigid returns the vase and gets to work on the first of a pair of candlesticks.
“What do you mean?” Felicity asks.
“Some o’ the girls picked on ’er. They pulled on ’er braids to see if she would talk.”
“Did she have friends at all?”
Brigid frowns. “That awful Sarah Rees-Too me would sometimes sit with ’er. I’d ’ear ’er askin’ Mina if she really could see into the dark, and wot it was like in that place, and Mrs. Spence took Sarah to task for that and forbade them from playin’ together.”
“Did Miss Wyatt have haunts that were special to her—hiding places, perhaps?” Felicity presses.
Brigid thinks for a moment. “She liked to sit out on the lawn and draw the gargoyles. I’d see ’er wif her book, lookin’ up at ’em and smilin’, like they were ’avin’ a tea party of their own.”
I recall my strange hallucination as I left for London at Easter. The gargoyle with the crow in its mouth. It gives me a shiver to think of Wilhelmina smiling at those hideous stone watchers. Guardians of the Night, indeed.
Brigid slows her dusting. “I do recall Missus Spence frettin’ over Mina later on. The girl had taken to drawin’ dreadful things, and Missus Spence said she were afraid Mina were under a bad influence. That’s what she said. And then the fire happened shortly after, and those two girls and Missus Spence gone wif it, God rest ’em.” With a sigh, she returns the candlestick and takes the other.
“But what happened to Wilhelmina? Why did she leave?”
Brigid licks her thumb and works at a smudge on the silver. “After the fire, she were actin’ peculiar—’cause of the grief, if you ask me, but no one did.”
Felicity quickly intervenes. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Brigid,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “What happened next?”
“Well,” Brigid continues, “Mina started scarin’ the other girls with ’er odd behavior. Writin’ and drawin’ those wicked things in ’er book. Missus Nightwing told ’er, relation or no relation to the missus, if she didn’ stop, she’d turn ’er out. But before she could, Mina left in the middle of the night, takin’ somefin’ valuable wif ’er.”