Page 6

Six

Before I could take down Uncle George, I needed to see where I stood. I needed Harriet.

“James Vale has been arrested? Already?” I kept my voice low and calm because there were ears everywhere inside Windsor Castle.

I made my trip the very next day. An excuse to see the nervous courtier. Funny, when I told Mama I had a present for the Queen,

she was suddenly all too delighted at my socializing. I guess as long as the chores are done.

Outside in the gardens, shadowed by the crown of ancient turrets, Harriet and I stayed close to the stone balcony, our dull

gray outfits darkening the carefully hewn evergreen hedges behind us. I stuck out a gloved hand expectantly. Shifting sheepishly

on her feet, Harriet handed me a pair of brass binoculars.

Through them, I could see Queen Victoria sitting at a round mahogany table, covered by the sun underneath a canopy as black

as her clothes. Her women puppets kept her company, including Harriet’s mother, Mrs. Phipps, who had a Napoleonic ruby around

her finger. Like that blasted fan she cooled herself with the day I met her. As long as it was French and inspired jealousy

in the hearts of her friends, she’d obtain it somehow.

The women drank only the finest tea in the palace, but even from up where I stood, I could see they were doing most of the talking. The Queen’s colorless lips barely touched her pristine porcelain cup. A dreary black veil covered half her face. Her apathetic expression was not the one of a mother who’d just married off her second daughter but that of a wife in mourning. Everyone knew why the Queen had become so mirthless and depressing. But nobody would dare bring it up.

Next to me, Harriet fidgeted with her fingers. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Bertie would follow me—and that Vale would bring

a gun! I mean—a gun .” She repeated the last word in a breathless hush, peering down below because there were red-clothed soldiers guarding the

Queen everywhere. Although I’d reminded her again and again that acting natural was paramount for this plan to go off without

a hitch, Harriet Phipps had a tendency to melt down when things didn’t quite go according to plan. And Vale being locked up

mere moments after his attempted murder of Uncle George was not according to plan.

“I saw the whole thing outside from where I was hiding,” Harriet explained. “Bertie had someone call the police to the den

before running off.”

“Of course because he didn’t want to be caught there himself.” I lowered the binoculars. I could use some tea myself. Or coffee.

As much as I hated the stuff, it had a strange calming effect on me, sharpening my thoughts. “I suspect you followed up on

Sibyl’s furious, protective older brother?”

“I met with Sibyl this morning. She’s already gone to visit her brother in custody. The poor girl’s heartbroken, but she has

no idea Forbes was ever in the opium den.”

“Which means Vale has already been silenced. The Forbes family moves quickly.” I’d already calculated the Forbeses’ ability to pull some strings with the police to keep their son’s shame away from the gossip pages. If things had gone to plan, Vale would have beaten the tar out of Uncle George with Rui controlling the situation, ensuring Uncle George stayed in the den and Vale went free to spread the word of his sister’s lover’s debauchery. After word had spread, the Forbeses’s plans to keep the matter silent would have come to nothing. Of course, things didn’t go so perfectly. They rarely did.

It was a good thing thinking quickly was a particularly salient talent of mine.

“Uncle George is probably sobering up at home thanks to his overprotective parents. We’ll have to draw him out again. As to

how?” I tapped my fingers across the rock ledge. “Well. Let’s just say I’ll have to ensure Rui makes good on his promises.”

I remembered to spread my lips into an amiable smile because Harriet scared easily. Showing my true face would only keep her

jittering in her petticoat.

Harriet leaned in conspiratorially. “And then what?”

“Ladies.”

Thankfully, Lord Ponsonby wasn’t exactly stealthy. I could hear the dowdy man coming from a mile away; his breathing was always

so loud. He wore a similarly uninspiring gray outfit to match ours, his black tie tucked underneath a sullen coat. “Sullen”

was the dress code whenever Queen Victoria was near. Everyone at Windsor Castle knew to conduct themselves accordingly. As

one of the Queen’s main court officials, Ponsonby would never betray her whims. Then again, some court visitors, like Mrs.

Phipps, slipped in a lavish item here and there.

Ponsonby stroked his white beard as Harriet and I both curtsied to him. “Her Majesty is going for a pleasant walk through

the gardens and has requested your presence.”

I peered down into courtyard at the little woman the nation had turned into their own private demigod.

I bowed my head, Harriet following my lead. “Of course, my lord.”

I never did answer the girl’s question: What happens after I draw Uncle George out of hiding?

I make him meet a fate far worse than Vale.

That the palace guards couldn’t sense my bloodlust made me question their professionalism. They didn’t even flinch as I passed

by them, my shrewd eyes on the humped figure of the aging monarch. Like a floating ghost in a graveyard, Queen Victoria led

her procession into a secluded part of the garden. We ladies marched behind her down an avenue of tall trees clipped of all

their branches lest one catch and tear the sleeve of their monarch, or the train of her dress, God forbid.

“A pleasant walk,” Ponsonby had promised us. This was more of a death march. The Queen’s ladies were graveyard silent, each

turning to each other, egging one another on to be the first to break the silence. I could see them fretting from where I

stood—behind them, of course. Always behind them.

“Look how far you’ve come in just a few short years,” Anne Schoen once told me, before her profession as an educator took

her into the English countryside. “All because of Queen Victoria’s kindly interest in you. How many days have you spent at

Windsor or Osborne to stay with one of the officers in Her Majesty’s household? How many times has the Queen sent for you

herself?”

Anne was like her mother. She knew the works of Ottobah Cugoano and Mary Prince, but could not understand their anger because

“times are different now.” We’re accepted now—the very point of abolitionism, according to some. We’re accepted .

As the trees towered over me, casting shadows in the cloudy gray morning, I wondered if Queen Victoria would ask me to sing for them like when she’d fetched for me at Christmas. I was very bright and clever, and had a talent for music. It was what she told her guests whenever she made me sing. What was it last time? Something from I Puritani , that blasted opera. I ground my teeth but kept my gait perfectly measured in the presence of the other women. Measured.

Ladylike.

Mrs. Phipps turned back and glared at her daughter next to me, giving the poor girl a start. There was no way any words could

form under the stifling shadow of her mother’s crippling expectations. Pressing her lips together, she played with her fingers

instead, her eyes downturned. But what was a failed test for Harriet was for me an opportunity.

I cleared my throat rather loudly, because one didn’t speak to the Queen until spoken to. It was just one of her rules. But

the rules didn’t say you couldn’t snake her attention first.

“Dear Sally, you’re not developing a cold again, are you?”

When Queen Victoria stopped we all did. When she spoke, we all grinned and found her words the most interesting ever spoken.

I shook my head. “Oh, no, Your Majesty. I’ve been of the best health for quite some time now.”

The ladies nodded in approval—all except Mrs. Phipps, of course, who bristled and snuck her daughter another disapproving

look, as if to say, Why couldn’t you have gotten the Queen’s attention? Just the usual overbearing, doddering nonsense from her.

“You’re so far away. Come, walk near me.”

The matter-of-fact tone in her voice wasn’t any different from usual. Despite this, her words had a chilling effect.

The Queen had ordered it. I had no choice but to oblige. Mrs. Phipps’s scowl deepened as I passed and soon she was squawking,

now that the Queen had allowed the ice to be broken.

“That’s good to hear, Sally. You always had such a weak constitution. I remember you developed a cold as a child no more than

a few weeks after you first arrived to England.”

After she made me dance. My fingers clenched into fists, but I kept my breaths measured despite the rising temperature.

“Why, even my dear husband was worried, as busy as he was.”

I rolled my eyes, and I was sure Harriet’s toes were curling with embarrassment. The other ladies smirked. They knew how hard

the woman had worked to marry into the Phipps dynasty as well as anyone else.

“You were of weak constitution, you poor thing,” Queen Victoria said.

No, I wasn’t. Shortly after I’d arrived in England, I had one coughing fit. One. The air was colder and drier than what I

was used to. And because of that the Queen had decided that England’s environment would surely kill me. That’s when she sent

me to Freetown, Sierra Leone. To the Female Institution, under the direction of Miss Sass, the superintendent, leaving me

to the mercy of her myriad corporal punishments. If an African like me was to gain a proper British education, then I would

need to do so in an institution situated in my “native” land. That’s what Queen Victoria had said.

But I knew the truth. I remembered all too well the first time I attended an official event at Windsor Castle. The irritated

violinists at the front of the Audience Chamber had to play louder to cover up my coughing, but the gossip from the ladies

and members of Parliament couldn’t be so easily erased. The Queen was particularly irate that night.

I was sent to Freetown not even a week later.

“I hear that the Anti-Slavery Society has been asking you to make speeches at events, Your Majesty,” I said to her, repressing

the sudden whispers of anger within me. “Like the public event they’re hosting next month hence. But you’ve been turning them

down?”

“I’m not my husband,” she said quickly, making the other women wince. True, abolitionism was more of an interest of Prince Albert’s. At school, I was forced to memorize the speech he gave at Exeter Hall twenty years ago. Funny, he never seemed taken with me whenever I showed up to court.

“Besides,” the Queen continued, “I have no desire for public engagements at this time.”

I had a feeling, but I wanted to be sure. Knowing that there were limitations on the Queen’s movements would be useful for

whatever schemes I planned in the future. But there was more I needed to be sure of.

“And what of your children, Your Majesty? Are they well? Everyone was so down at the wedding.”

Maybe I could find out what the Queen really knew.

“Princess Alice’s wedding dress was beautiful,” Mrs. Phipps piped up as if she was competing with me. Who was I kidding, she

was clearly competing with me.

“Yes, it was indeed,” added Mrs. Mallet, a close associate of the court, her raven hair always done to mimic the latest styles

of women half her age. “A wreath of myrtle... and that orange blossom—”

“Oh, stop.” The Queen waved her hand dismissively. “Anyone with a working head on their shoulders could tell she was miserable.

They were all miserable. Sally is quite right.”

I hid a smirk behind my hands as the Queen’s ladies recoiled.

“They’ve all gone off now, out doing their business. They couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

“Surely, Bertie sticks around,” I said, and watched her expression closely.

It hardened. Sharper than the edge of a stone.

“Where that boy goes and what he does, I no longer have any desire to find out.” The venom in the Queen’s tone could have

melted the bordering trees.

Well, that was good to know. The Queen’s hatred for her son meant even if he did have a change of heart or found out something he shouldn’t, he wasn’t going to go running off to Mummy anytime soon. I had the upper hand there, then.

The pebbles of the smoothened dirt walkway crackled beneath my boots. I didn’t realize I was smiling openly until I felt the

Queen’s eagle eyes on me. The moment I turned, her blue pupils contracted and she faced ahead, expressionless.

“As you know, I have three children myself,” said Mrs. Phipps, turning the Napoleonic ruby around her finger. “My youngest,

Albert Augustus, stopped sending me letters the moment he joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps at the top of his class.” The

other ladies looked like they wanted to groan. “Oh, how they can be so wicked to their mothers.”

I didn’t need to turn around. I knew Harriet’s shoulders were slumping. Her mother prattled on about the children she was

actually proud of until the Queen cleared her throat and the party fell silent with the caw of a crow.

“Indeed, children ofttimes forget their parents when they’ve gone away to school. You didn’t write much either, Sally, when

you were in Freetown. At the Female Institution, that is.”

I physically recoiled hearing her speak the name. My muscles spasmed down to my toes. Though I covered it well, clasping my

fingers together, I wasn’t foolish enough to think the Queen hadn’t noticed.

“The Female Institution has been rebuilt,” the Queen said. “Did you know that, Sally?”

My heart stopped. The single crow soared above us and disappeared into the graying clouds. I couldn’t answer right away.

“The Female Institution?” Mrs. Mallet turned to another woman.

“In Freetown,” the woman whispered back. “Sierra Leone.”

“Yes, in Sierra Leone.” The Queen straightened her shoulders. “It’s been years since that dreadful event happened. Eventually, the Church Missionary Society decided to build it back up again. They recently sent me word about it—and that the school has a new head: Miss Sass.”

The blood rushed from my head, weighing down my entire body. My arms felt heavy enough to drop to the ground. The sound of

that name from anyone’s mouth—suddenly my hands stung, as if they were being strapped again. One whack. Another.

And the Queen—she was watching me. She was watching me as intently as I ever watched her. Before I could compose myself, she

cleared her throat. “Julia Sass.”

“What?” I blurted out rather impolitely, if the reactions from the ladies were anything to go by. “I’m sorry,” I muttered

quickly.

The Queen held up a steady black-gloved hand. “It’s quite all right. I assumed such a thing would shock you.”

Yes, indeed she did. Which was why she said it—in front of everyone. Several pairs of eyes were now on me. The Queen had called

me to her side for a reason. Furious with myself, I swallowed my anger and clasped my hands together.

“And Julia Sass is—”

“A family member of the old superintendent, Emma Sass,” the Queen answered. “A cousin, perhaps. I don’t know much about Emma’s family and I never did

ask, especially after that woman was fired. The Church Missionary Society is even thinking of renaming the school. I wonder

how you feel about that, Sally?”

“Isn’t that the missionary school Sally attended when she was young?” Mrs. Phipps chimed in unhelpfully. “The school that

burned to the ground?”

All eyes were now on me. And perhaps it’s precisely what the Queen wanted.

If guilt was what she was searching for now as we walked nearly side by side, she wouldn’t find it. The squeeze of my throat

and heat flooding my face were but a by-product of fury—the fury nurtured in that bottomless hell of an educational facility.

Those among the Queen’s congregation smart enough to pick up the tension between us would surely spread the gossip around

the elite circles. The Queen wouldn’t want that, not when it came to me, her favorite card to play, proof of her everlasting

mercy and philanthropy.

It was a dangerous game we were both playing.

“I’m so glad,” I told her, and made sure I sounded it. “I’m sure the new school will be open for decades to come. Although

I’m surprised you’d keep up with its news. It’s only one school in Africa, after all. Unless you’re keeping close track of

me.” I laughed. “But that would be a little smothering, wouldn’t it?”

Some more light laughter to break the tension. Apparently, it wasn’t entirely effective.

“The Queen adores you,” Mrs. Phipps said with a cluck of her tongue as if she wanted to add I can’t fathom why. “There’s nothing sinister about it, silly girl.”

“A silly girl she is not,” Queen Victoria said quietly, and with a little smile added, “Though sinister? Perhaps only in your

sense of humor, child.”

A dangerous game. I returned the smile in kind. “I learned from the best.”