The Lady and the Locksmith (5 page)

Susannah looked up when she heard footsteps on the stairs that led down to the basement. Her father burst in, with the butler and the housekeeper.

Molly, the housekeeper, begged Susannah to cooperate.

‘Just tell them where it is, there’s a good girl.’

Susannah tried to stay steadfast.

The men ransacked the room and Susannah watched while all her things were strewn about. Her books, her papers, the handkerchiefs and everything else in the chest of drawers, all scattered on the floor. Susannah shut down all emotion and saw it all unfold as if it meant nothing to her. The writing box, smashed to smithereens, her flowers knocked over and water spilling over the edge of the bureau and onto the floor. And all the while, in the distance, she could hear Molly alternately begging the men to stop, and begging Susannah to cooperate before everything in the room was broken.

Finally, when they had looked everywhere, they realised it must be on her person. Sure enough, the key was found, on a silk ribbon around her neck. Susannah tried to hold onto it, but she couldn’t fight them all. Her father was wild with anger, and he wrenched at the ribbon, determined to drag the key away from her.

The ribbon snapped, and Susannah howled in distress.

Molly was horrified. ‘For the love of heaven, sir! You’ve hurt her. Look at that angry red mark on her neck.’

Susannah’s father didn’t take any notice. He turned back to her and shook her roughly. ‘He made you this key, didn’t he? And tell me, what did he get from you?’

 
‘Papa, I did nothing wrong. Nothing that would embarrass you.’

 
‘Foolish, foolish girl! You imagine I cannot see through that artless young man? I wouldn’t last a day in politics if I were not more cynical than that!’

Carl didn’t return to the shop. He loitered near the house, hiding in the shadow of an overgrown hedge about a hundred yards away from her house. He sat and waited, hoping that sooner or later Fortescue would go out. He didn’t mind if Broderick swore at him, for being late back to work. He didn’t care if Broderick sacked him as long as Susannah was safe. As time went on, he cursed himself for not rushing in there, to confront the wretched man. It wasn’t even fear that prevented him - it was the sickening realisation that in order to help her, he must keep her secret just a little longer.

Just when Carl was at the point of giving up, he saw a man in a smart summer suit striding down the path, swinging his silver-topped cane. Fortescue.

Carl waited until the hated man was out of sight, and then went back to the house. He waved to the gardener in a friendly way, as he made his way round to the tradesmen’s entrance. He wanted it to look as if he had a perfect right to be there. If anyone questioned him, he would say it was about the unpaid bill.

Then he seized his chance. He nipped round to the back door, the one that led down to the basement.

He knew he would find it locked. But Carl could deal with that. He had, in his pocket, a set of likely keys, and he tried a few until he found a promising one. The key was close, but not quite right, so Carl took out a small metal file, and filed it down until he thought it would fit. Then he tried it once more and it worked perfectly.

He crept down the stairs, wondering what he would find.

 
‘Susannah?’ he said, ‘Are you there?’

With a sense of terrible fear in his chest, he pushed open a door and went inside. This must be her room, and it chilled him to see that it was in total disarray. A vase of flowers, tipped over. A writing box, smashed into pieces on the ground, and all the envelopes scattered all around. A torn picture and a broken frame.

His heart skittered in his chest. She was nowhere to be seen, but he thought he heard a faint sound. She must be here. ‘Susannah?’

‘Go away. I don’t want you to see me like this.’

Her voice came from the wardrobe.

‘Oh God, Susannah, what has he done to you?’ Pulling open the door, Carl found her in the wardrobe. She was sitting hunched up on the floor, choking back the sobs. He knelt down, hoping to comfort her; fearful she’d push him away. Her dress was torn and her face was very tear-stained. But she was still his own sweet girl.

‘Mr Janssen – they took away my key!’ she burst out, and he pulled her into his arms.

He hushed and soothed and kissed her hair, which hung around her face in dishevelled, uncombed curls. He had to think fast. He couldn’t take her back to his lodgings. His landlady wouldn’t allow that. His parents were dead and his brother was at sea; his sisters were all in service. He couldn’t ask the Brodericks for help; they were so much in awe of bloody Fortescue.

‘What are we going to do?’ she said.

‘I don’t know yet. But I promise you will not have to sleep another night in this dreadful place, not if I can help it.’

‘You’ll take me away from here?’ she said, in astonishment.

He nodded, but his heart stuttered because of the rash promise that he’d made. He glanced desperately round the room, as if he’d find the answer on the floor with everything else. Then he looked up again at Susannah. He couldn’t take her anywhere as she was. The torn white nightgown made her look as mad as Lady Macbeth. ‘First, we’ll get you dressed. Do you have some sort of travelling outfit?’

She shook her head. ‘I haven’t had need of one, Carl.’

‘You need one now,’ he said ruefully. ‘Something that won’t draw attention to us, when we try to get on the train.’

‘The train?’ she said, with bright round eyes. ‘You’re taking me on the train?’

He nodded, though his plans were only just beginning to take shape.

He helped her to put up her hair. Carl had seven sisters and had acquired a fairly good idea of how a young woman’s hair was supposed to look. He searched around the room until he found her hairbrush, on the floor where everything had been ransacked. ‘Do you have pins?’ he said, gently. She nodded, and they searched around until they found them, and then he helped her to coil up all her long honey-gold hair into some kind of order again.

Hastily they packed up a few of her things, and she dressed as neatly as she could, in a long grey skirt and a white blouse with a brooch pinned at the neckline.

She put a short blue cape round her shoulders. ‘There,’ she said, and turned to Carl. ‘Do I look less like a mad girl, now?’

He gave a rueful grin. She knew. She knew what was said about her.

‘You are
my
girl, Susannah, that’s what you are.’ He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

‘Look,’ she said, and bent down to pick some sheets of paper off the floor. ‘My railway timetable. If we can just get up to London, I know someone who will help.’

Together, when the coast was clear, and the gardener had gone for his lunch in the kitchen, they made a bolt for the railway station.

O
N THE TRAIN, they sat opposite one another, trying to make a plan. The first thing Carl wanted to know was who she knew in London, who might be able to help.

 
‘His name’s John Finnegan,’

‘And who is he?’

‘He’s my doctor,’ she confessed. ‘He has been helping me to see things more clearly.’

 
‘Susannah! We can’t go to him!’

‘Why ever not?’ she said. ‘He’s very nice. He’ll tell us what to do.’ She frowned in confusion, and looked hurt.

Carl sighed and cursed himself for speaking so sharp. Her naivety alarmed him, but it could hardly be seen as her fault. ‘You think your doctor is your friend, sweetheart? Who do you think pays his bills?’

‘His bills?’

‘Yes. He will have been paid handsomely for every conversation you’ve ever had with him. Your father pays him. So he’s Fortescue’s man, no doubt.’

He watched her thinking this over, turning it around in her innocent mind.

‘You must think me very silly,’ she said. ‘But please, let’s try the doctor. I’ve been shut away and I am foolish, but I know when someone can be trusted. Why else would I have trusted
you
?’

Carl couldn’t answer that. He thought it was insanity itself to go to the doctor, but he couldn’t offer her any alternative. He had no friends or relatives in London. His plans went as far as spending the night in a cheap boarding house. He hadn’t got any further than that. Perhaps they should have tried his unmarried aunt in Skegness. But he couldn’t even imagine what she would have said if he’d turned up there with a woman on his arm.

They walked for what seemed like miles, before they reached Finnegan’s house. It was a smart terraced house with a brass plate mounted beside the door.

They were shown into the front parlour, and Finnegan, a well-respected doctor in his fifties, was surprisingly polite and sympathetic. He listened to the whole story, and all the time he stroked his beard as if he was deep in thought. He said nothing.

‘Susannah tells me you’re an excellent doctor,’ Carl said, and the older man raised an eyebrow. ‘And you’ve had the decency to listen.’

The doctor smiled. ‘But?’

Carl nodded and gave a nervous half-smile. He was standing before the mantelpiece, feeling angry and self-conscious, and he kept crushing his cap in his hand. ‘But … I believe Susannah is as capable of making her own decisions as you or I. It is true that she has no understanding of how the world works – but that’s because she has been kept hidden away from the world for so long. What human being wouldn’t behave a little oddly if kept like a caged bird or common criminal?’

The doctor seemed amused. ‘You speak most persuasively, young man. Have you ever thought of entering politics yourself? You would certainly win the hearts of the people with your … charisma. Tell me? Did you practice in front of a mirror to get that impassioned look in your eyes or does it come naturally to you?’

‘This is no moment for levity, Mr Finnegan, Doctor. Sir,’ Carl wasn’t sure how to address the man. ‘Politics is a dirty business. I prefer changing locks and grinding keys. Good honest work where nobody gets hurt.’

Finnegan sent Susannah into his consulting room and told her to look at a book, so that he could have ‘a private word’ with Carl.

‘Mr Fortescue is a friend of mine,’ he began.

Carl sighed, already feeling defeated.

‘He’s a good politician too.’

Carl snorted. ‘He’s a
terrible
father – to inflict such unhappiness on his daughter! I should not want a man like that representing my interests.’

‘That’s just the thing. He
does
represent the interests of men just like you – decent working men. He will bring about marvellous changes if he is elected. It would be a catastrophe if he were to lose, Mr Janssen. Have you any idea what a scandal it would cause if the papers got a whiff of all this?’

Carl frowned.

‘Susannah is … very troubled,’ Finnegan said. ‘Her mind is not like yours and mine. You’ve noticed her unnatural curiosity, and how impetuous she is? How she fails to think before she speaks, and when she speaks she always says exactly what’s on her mind?”

Yes. Carl had noticed, and he was in love with it all. ‘What exactly is wrong with her, sir?’