Page 11

Eleven

That boy was from Freetown. And he knew something. He left dread in his wake as he disappeared into the crowd. Who was he?

What did he know about the Institution?

What did he know about me at the Institution?

It couldn’t have been nothing. It’s not like my schooling was a secret. I was the Queen’s goddaughter. Very little about me

was secret unless I strove to make it so. Was I projecting my own sadism onto that irritating little grin of his?

My mind started racing before I realized I’d stood in the same spot for too long. The spectacle of the dancing African princess

was over. The guests had already gone back to the drugs and drinks. I had to get back to my business too. Unearthing the boy’s

secrets was just another item on my list, to be crossed off in the near future.

I turned once again to the door no one seemed courageous enough to enter, the one with cigar smoke seeping out of the corners.

Making sure no one was watching, I entered.

Now, how had Bertie snuck in cabaret dancers? I shook my head in disbelief. In the center of the small drawing room, Bertie enjoyed them well enough, lounging with a cigar in his mouth and his legs spread in a caveman V on a love seat across from the door. The love seat, a few paces in front of the door, was just big enough to fit the three women who clinked wineglasses and whispered seductively in his ear. It wasn’t enough space for Bertie’s smoking gentleman friends from the army, though. But they didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they slumped behind the couch when the cabaret dancers lifted up their frilled skirts on their makeshift stage—not too much, of course. Just enough to show their long white stockings and a hint of white thigh. The boys went crazy, hollering like the hooligans they swore they weren’t.

Right when the show became a little too hot, I slipped in front of him.

“Your Highness! We meet again!”

Bertie’s jaw dropped as I stepped on his vest, which had been abandoned on the carpeted floor. He pulled his hand out of his

pants and a pillow out from behind him to immediately cover his lap. For what reason I, in all my girlish innocence, couldn’t

fathom.

“S-Sally,” he bumbled, his face flushed. “Wh-What are you doing here?”

“You’ll forgive the intrusion. I know you’re incredibly busy with these—actresses, I presume?” I tilted my head and pointed

to the girls now standing up pin straight, furious, on the love seat. He has certainly had a weakness for actresses. “Nonetheless,

I have something of grave importance to discuss with you, Your Illustrious Highness.”

I bowed deeply. His red ears told me he didn’t expect me to catch him twice in one week. “I wasn’t expecting to see you. I

don’t recall inviting you—”

“Nonsense. I’m always invited.” I took a step closer to him. Our knees nearly touched. “Besides, this really is a matter of

grave importance. It’s about your grieving mother, you see—”

“Sally, love!” Bertie jumped out of his chair, leaving the women frustrated, and grabbed me around the crook of my arm. “Why

don’t we talk somewhere more private, eh?”

Too bad. I wasn’t quite finished killing the mood. But he pulled me into an empty adjacent room regardless, away from the bustle of the party. The air was musty and the room was somehow still dark despite the oil lamps gathered around the pristine pool table. Yet another room meant for only a chosen few. He shut the door in a huff.

“What is it, then?” he said, loosening the scarf around his turned-up collar. “Mother found out I was here and sent you to

throw something at my head? A bust of my father’s?”

His face was flushed. I knew the mention of the Queen would disturb him. I turned from him, staying near the dark mahogany

walls. “Now, why would you think she’d send me to do something like that?”

“Telling me off is all she does these days, when she’s even in the mood to see me.” Bertie strode over to the pool table and

gripped its wooden ledge. “Ever since Father...”

He fell silent. I could see his knuckles paling from how tightly he gripped the table. He didn’t need to continue. Everyone

in the Queen’s inner circle knew what had happened in the days leading to his father’s death. That whole affair with Nellie

Clifton, his father’s fear that he could have impregnated her, the scandal that would rip through England if an actress gave

birth to the young Crown Prince’s illegitimate child. Was it a coincidence that his father fell ill so soon afterward? Queen

Victoria didn’t think so.

I had to approach the matter delicately. “I know full well what has happened to the royal household after the Prince Consort’s

death.” I tugged the dark red drapes with a tender touch. “The sorrow. The strange rituals as if to make His Majesty’s memory

real.”

Like how the Queen would wear nothing but black; even at her own child’s wedding, she flitted around like a wraith. I’d seen, once, at Osborne House, Prince Albert’s portraits draped in black cloth as is to keep his spirit from crossing over to the other side. I heard from the servants inside that they’d been ordered to keep his private rooms pristine—as if the Queen’s husband would return to them one day.

It wasn’t love. I didn’t buy that it was. For had the Queen truly understood love, then she couldn’t have so hastily torn

me from my people. It felt something more akin to obsession and dependence. I saw it in too many couples, brought together

by duty and compulsory procreation. How quickly their minds became feeble as they went through the insipid rhythm of marriage

and the doldrums of the everyday.

I’d seen my parents butchered, my friend drowned, and my clan torn asunder. But over one dead husband, the Queen had vowed

never again to be seen in public until her own dying day. And how many families had the Crown decimated? How many nations

had the British Empire brought to ruin? She was acting like a child.

“It’s why you can’t stand to be around her, isn’t it, Bertie?”

When I said his name, Bertie looked at me, hesitantly at first, before letting go of the pool table to face me. He wasn’t

an ugly child at least. I could see why those women were drawn to his long, handsome face, light eyes, and sculpted chin.

They didn’t see what I did: the contemptibility born of birthright and privilege. He was at once angry at me for being right

and yet still looked to me for guidance. I wasn’t surprised when he grumbled childishly in the affirmative.

“She’s miserable,” he told me, biting his thin pink bottom lip. “She’s making us all miserable. The whole household.”

“But Bertie: she is a woman without her husband. Without her greatest love. She just needs support, that’s all.” I moved close,

my dress sweeping across my ankles.

Bertie flashed a bitter smirk. “She doesn’t want my support.”

“It doesn’t have to be yours. There is a man that I believe could carry the burden. Mr. John Brown from Balmoral. I was told

of him by some of the courtiers.”

Harriet. She was good on these occasions too. John Brown was Prince Albert’s outdoor servant, devoted to his last day. The Queen knew of him. Remarked upon him fondly. Well, she loved her Highlanders. I wonder how much of this Rui already knew.

“Yes, I know of him. My father trusted him and held him in high esteem.” Bertie stroked his chin with a finger. “He’s a strong-willed

Scot. A man’s man, loyal to the Crown.”

“John Brown is the man to draw Her Majesty out of her morbid state, I just know it.”

I took a chance and touched his arm, just beneath his elbow. It surprised him. Anything gentler than my usual annoyance and

disdain for the childish prince would shock anyone. His clear blue eyes dilated as he sucked in a breath and pursed his lips.

He was looking at me. At my soft nose and large eyes. At my mouth. At my beauty.

“Are you sure he could help my mother if he was at her side?”

I nodded. “If you run the idea by Lord Ponsonby, I’m sure he would agree too. It would show your leadership. Show that you’re

taking charge in these matters, like a Crown Prince should. You are Prince Albert’s eldest son. I’m sure the entire nation

would appreciate it.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the tight skin of his neck. And as he silently nodded, I breathed a sigh of

relief.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Bertie cleared his throat and straightened his back, as if remembering a royal was supposed

to look the part. He smoothened out his golden hair. “I am intrigued by your suggestion and will take it into my consideration.”

In other words, he would do exactly as I said and present the solution to Lord Ponsonby as if it were his idea all along.

I gave him a little thankful smile and bowed my head as he walked toward the door. Soon this John Brown would be on a boat to England. Whatever it was that Rui wanted from him, this at least meant our partnership and my plans could continue.

Bertie’s hand lingered on the knob for a fleeting moment before he turned back around. “Oh, this conversation does remind

me,” he said. “Sally, make sure you go to Windsor Castle before the night ends. I heard that my mother’s been asking for you

of late.”

Windsor Castle again? I narrowed my eyes. “Pardon?”

“Sorry, I might have forgotten to tell you. I was so wrapped up in the—” He gestured toward the door, the debauchery outside,

before shrugging affably. “But it’s not a problem, is it? Just pop over there now while you’re in the city. You don’t mind,

do you?”

He didn’t wait for my answer. With a sheepish smile and a wink, before I could prod him any further, he left me in the smoky

room.

“God, this place really has become a casket, hasn’t it?” I whispered to Harriet as she showed me through the silent hallways

of the castle. It never ceased to amaze me every time I entered the castle. Nobody spoke. Even the footmen were dressed in

mourning black. The female courtiers were given more choice and kept their show of suffering to a despondent gray. But if

they were suffering in truth, they certainly didn’t show it:

“You’ve heard what happened to Captain George Forbes,” I heard one whisper as I passed, her eyes following me. “He was close

to Her Majesty, wasn’t he?”

Another courtier nodded. “More than one of Her Majesty’s close friends has met a horrible end. My sister says they’ve been

cursed.”

I stifled a grin. In a way they were right. But soon my flesh crawled from a sudden chill as Harriet ushered me inside the

Queen’s sitting room.

Queen Victoria, the head mourner in a never-ending funeral, sat at her desk, the layers of her black silk taffeta dress spilling onto the floor. Her poor young ladies-in-waiting stood behind her dutifully but stiffly as she wrote one of her letters with black ink and quill.

“Your Majesty, Sarah Forbes Bonetta,” Harriet announced me, and I raised an eyebrow in her direction. She sounded so different

here. So solemn and formal—not the usual bumbling ninny shadowing me, begging for orders. Her hands were shaking as she clasped

them together, waiting for the Queen’s response.

None came. The Queen continued to write her letter. Always with her letters. But somehow that was a response in and of itself.

Harriet bowed and, after giving me a furtive good luck glance, left the room.

Portraits of Prince Albert were everywhere, as were the black veils meant to signify the Queen’s sorrow. Only a woman so self-involved

could turn her home, her child’s wedding, into a reflection of her own grief. Wind whistled eerily through the arched window,

slightly ajar. I was to stand here in silence until the Queen was finished with her letter.

Finally, the paper was folded. The quill in its well. She handed the letter to one of her ladies behind her, who hurried out

the door to deliver it. And when she finally looked up at me, I bowed accordingly.

“Sally.”

“Your Majesty.”

Silence. The Queen sounded as if she had not slept. Her eyes were steely and the sharpness in her voice put me on edge.

“I heard of your uncle’s unfortunate case.” She spoke without patience or kindness.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Lady Forbes is beside herself. We all wish him well.”

Did she? I remembered full well all she had to say about the “mad” Lord Adolphus Vane-Tempest after one of the many times he was sent to an infirmary to recover from one of his fits. The way she tittered and mocked the man’s abused wife, a bridesmaid in her own daughter’s wedding, was appalling. Needless to say, I doubted her capacity for sympathy toward the struggles of others.

If anything, her shortness with me had more to do with the palace gossip: another of the Queen’s friends had met his demise,

and surely it had something to do with the Queen’s recent, jarringly sudden transformation into a caricature of a despondent

witch. Those courtiers seemed to believe it. Perhaps all in her circle were cursed by association.

Queen Victoria closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, the black sleeve of her mourning crepe draped across the desk.

“One of my ladies saw Captain Forbes wandering Trafalgar Square. He spoke of ghosts and ghouls and other frightful things.

But he also said something strange.”

The way the Queen stared into my eyes felt as if she held a dagger to my throat. The woman could be a ghoul herself when she

wanted. My heartbeat sped up. I had to remember to breathe. In and out. I relaxed my shoulders when I noticed them inching

closer to my ears.

“What, Your Majesty?”

Queen Victoria didn’t blink. “That he was with you the night he saw them: the ghosts and the ghouls and the other frightful

things.”

Unlike during our walk in the garden, I didn’t miss a beat. “Your Majesty, you know as well as I do he isn’t well. You also

must know of his... dependency on certain substances.”

“Indeed I do. Which is why it was especially curious that, allegedly, when he asked for his opium, he said you would give

it to him. That you had done so before. His good little girl.”

Remembering Uncle George’s languid head lolling around on my lap, I suppressed a shudder. “Me? Your Majesty?” I clutched my

chest. “Why would I do such a horrid thing? Uncle George’s habits are the deepest source of shame for the Forbes family.”

“The ramblings of a madman are not usually so specific.”

If she wanted to accuse me of something, the morbid cow should have just come out and said it. Though I wanted to goad her

into it, I couldn’t let the mask fall, but my irritation was surely starting to show by now, flickering like fire in my eyes

to match the ice in hers.

Out of a red box placed upon the corner of a desk, the Queen brought out another letter. “His misfortune reminds me too gravely

of his other brother’s misfortune. For the Forbes family to suffer the loss of two sons. Those sons. It is, at the very least, unsettling.”

Or perhaps it was I who was unsettling. Years of wearing a mask after my own tragedy had sometimes made it difficult to discern

just what a “normal” reaction to tragedy was.

It was then I realized, with my hands clasped together, that my reaction was exactly what the Queen had been monitoring.

“Too many strange happenings follow you, Sally. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Well, I didn’t come to England under the best circumstances, Your Majesty. If my life is an odd one, then perhaps it’s my

fate.”

“Was Miss Sass committing suicide her fate?”

My heart stopped as she peered into my eyes. “What?”

“Was it, at the very least, odd?”

My whole body flushed. I could feel moistness gathering beneath my hairline. Sass committed suicide?

“Something else the Church Missionary Society told me. The superintendent took her own life almost two years after the Institution

burned down.”

The flush had turned into a sudden chill. Too many thoughts raced through my mind. Miss Sass... dead.

I had to keep calm. But memories of that woman’s face flooded into me. I’d made sure nobody had died in that fire. If lives were ruined and jobs lost, that was but a small price to pay for my misery. I didn’t think anyone would die.

I thought of Mr. Bellamy and the broken neck of his corpse at the foot of the stairwell. My breaths quickened. The Queen could

surely see the rise and fall of my chest.

I wrung my palms, trying to keep my emotions, my guilt, from spiraling any further, and my hands began to ache. I looked down

at the brown skin. Yes, if I concentrated hard enough I could see them—the scars from the Sass’s lashings. Suddenly, I could

feel it too: her cane tearing apart my flesh.

My expression turned cold again. “How terrible. I didn’t know.” I tried my best to fake sincerity. I had to. Someone had written

to Queen Victoria of things better left forgotten. There was no telling what this witch really knew. “But I was a child in

those days. How could I know?”

I had to convince her.

The weight of the conversation sucked all the air out of the room. The ladies-in-waiting behind the Queen shivered slightly,

as if moving their bodies any further would make them bloodied victims of this knifelike tension.

“I’m not blaming you. But things don’t happen by accident. Our past can affect our present. The dead can affect the living.

Sometimes even our own emotional states can affect the world around us.”

I didn’t blame the ladies-in-waiting for exchanging confused glances. Victorian spiritualism wasn’t for everyone, though Queen

Victoria seemed to like it enough to transform her palace into a morbid shrine to her dead husband. How ironic, considering

how desperate they were to teach us Christianity.

“Unfortunately, I can’t say I’ve brushed up on my esoteric theory,” I said, trying to keep my annoyance to a minimum. “But

are you saying, Your Majesty, that I’m somehow manifesting these evil things?”

Perish the thought. Wishing was for the weak. You wring blood with your own hands.

“I’ve seen people say similarly frightening things about Uncle George—and about Your Majesty as well.” With all the modesty

I could muster, I gestured to the darkened windows. “They’re saying terrible things befall the company you keep. The people

who love you. For my sake, I hope such superstitious nonsense isn’t true.”

The Queen fell silent. I was too good of an actress. She wasn’t sure what to think. She wasn’t sure what was happening, except

that it was happening and it filled her with dread.

“Yes,” she whispered. “The people are talking.” Taking her quill and dipping it into its inkwell, she began writing once again.

“Mrs. Schoen has mentioned to me that you have been quite busy these days. Out and about, especially in London.”

I clenched my jaw. Was Schoen my guardian or the Queen’s little spy? “I do fancy myself a stroll or two during the day. I’m

a young lady, Your Majesty.”

“Precisely. And a young lady such as yourself would benefit from taking on the duties all young ladies must bear once they

come of age.” She looked at me. “You are a very smart girl, Sally. And all very smart girls need discipline and restriction.”

The specter of Sass and the burning Institution haunted my thoughts as Queen Victoria continued writing.

“And what do you have in mind?” I asked quietly. I wish I hadn’t.

The answer hit me like a blow to the head.

“Marriage. Promptly and without delay.”

I couldn’t feel my arms. I thought of Gowramma, her screaming baby and her wrinkled husband, and couldn’t feel my arms .

“What?” My mouth had dried. I wasn’t even sure the word had come out clearly.

“I’ve already procured your prospect. He’s been exchanging letters with me for some time over this issue and I’ve decided to grant him permission to take you back to his homeland.”

“ Take me?”

The ladies-in-waiting looked scandalized behind the Queen, for surely they’d heard the indignation, the naked anger in my

voice. Take. Take me? Was I something to be taken?

But of course I was. It was why I was in the forsaken country in the first place.

A possession to be given and to give in return. Like a child’s toy passed around from one hand to the next. I thought of the

hollow eyes of the self-portraits I drew of myself and shuddered down to my bones. The Queen was nonplussed. Absorbed in her

letter, it made no difference to her how I felt or what I thought on the matter. Her word was law.

“And who is this man you’ve been conspiring with behind my back?” I hissed, my fingers clenched. “Without even asking my opinion?”

“Captain Davies. A wealthy gentleman from Lagos, one of my colonies. By my decree, you are to marry him before the end of

next month. August fourteenth is the tentative date. I suggest you prepare yourself before then.”

If I were a doll, then I was one made of cracked glass shattering to pieces with each cruel word of indifference spoken from

the Queen’s mouth. One month. Marriage to some man I didn’t even know. One month. One month ? But what of my plans? What of my revenge?

Mr. Bellamy. Mr. Bambridge. Uncle George. McCoskry. Phipps...

My list. I wasn’t finished. Take me? He’d been given permission by the Queen of England to take me in one month? Was I hostage? Was I to be a captive all

my life?

And that’s when I realized in a fit of chilling despair...

She’d checkmated me.

So swiftly and without delay.

Power. Power was devastating. With power you didn’t need intellect to move your pawns in a game of chess. Speak a word and

at will they will move where you desire with the outcome of your choice. The power to mold bodies, bring them together and

move them to different parts of the world like chess pieces on a board. That was a monarch’s power.

This was why I hated Queen Victoria above all the others. This was why she was my most dangerous foe. There is no power more devastating

than that bestowed by divine right. It was a tantalizing power and I could only counter it with my carefully curated rage.

And where would that rage go once I was locked inside my gilded cage? Where would I go?

Would such an “I” even still exist?

“Your Majesty—”

“The matter has been settled, Sally. I’ve settled it. The letter is being sent to Captain Davies as we speak. He’s only too happy to bring you back to West Africa

with him.”

Ah. So that was the letter she’d been writing. I wished I’d snatched it out of her wrinkled hands and stuffed it down her

throat. The matter is settled. We’ll see about that.

“You will meet him once he arrives in London and learn to obey him as his wife.”

Discipline and restriction. Well, that was one way to cut a problem off at the knees.

“Sally, poor child,” the Queen said, now suddenly donning the expression of a kind matriarch. It infuriated me. “This is a

rite of passage that all women must pass through. But once you do, you’ll feel it: the peace you’ll find once you’ve settled

down. I was once against marriage myself when I first became queen. But being with my Albert and experiencing his love was

the greatest gift anyone could have given me.”

The greatest gift indeed—besides me, that is.

How ghoulish. She spoke of love, but only to move me—both my heart and my body. Control. She was lovingly handing me over to another master. And I was to lovingly accept.

That’s what love meant to a British queen.

I couldn’t stand it. I wouldn’t stand this any longer. She hadn’t beaten me. The pieces were still in play.

I refused to lose.

Mr. Bellamy. Mr. Bambridge. Uncle George. McCoskry. Phipps.

Queen Victoria.

There would be no peace for me until I had completely destroyed her.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” I bowed and left her room.